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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    ■    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  H.  Meserve,  Esq.,  New  York  City 


ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN 

The'  BOY  and  the   MAN 

BY 

JAMES    MORGAN 

AUTHOR    OF    "THEODORE    ROOSEVELT.    THE    BOY 
AND    THE    MAN  *' 

"THE   CHILD   IS   FATHER    OF   THE    MAN" 

NEW   YORK 
THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

MCMXXVI 

ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Copyright,  1908, 
By  THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  September,  1908.    Reissued 
April,  1925  ;  October,  1926. 


PRINTED    IN   THE    UNITED    STATES   OF   AMERICA    BY 
THE   BERWICK    &   SMITH   CO. 


TO  tiM. 


FOREWORD 


"Abraham  Lincoln,  The  Boy  and  the  Man,* 
is  not  a  critical  study,  but  a  simple  story.  Its 
aim  is  to  present  in  dramatic  pictures  the  strug- 
gles and  achievements  of  a  common  man,  in 
whom  the  race  of  common  men  is  exalted ;  who 
solved  great  problems  by  the  plain  rules  of  com- 
mon sense  and  wrought  great  deeds  by  the 
exercise  of  the  common  qualities  of  honesty  and 
courage,  patience,  justice,  and  kindness.  That  is 
the  Lincoln  who,  on  the  centenary  of  his  birth, 
stands  forth  as  the  true  prophet  of  a  reunited 
people  and  the  noblest  product  of  that  democracy 
which  is  slowly  uniting  all  peoples  in  fraternal 
bonds. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  volume  many  authori- 
tative sources  have  been  freely  drawn  upon  for 
illustrative  incidents,  a  grateful  acknowledgment 
of  which  is  mad**  in  the  chapter  entitled  "A 
Course  in  Lincoln." 


Til 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTBR 
I. 

A  Child  of  Poverty 

II. 

Life  in  the  Indiana  Wilderness 

III. 

The  Awakening  of  Ambition 

IV. 

A  Boyhood  of  Toil 

V. 

On  the  Prairies  of  Illinok 

VI. 

Wrestling  with  Destiny    . 

VII. 

In  the  Legislature   .          • 

VIII. 

Lover  and  Lawyer 

IX. 

Marriage  and  Politics 

X. 

In  Congress  . 

XL 

Life  on  the  Circuit           . 

XII. 

Home  and  Neighbors       .          , 

XIII. 

Called  to  his  Life  Mission 

XIV. 

"A  House  divided  against  Itsel 

f" 

XV. 

The  Great  Debate 

XVI. 

A  National  Figure            .          . 

XVII. 

The  Standard  Bearer        .          , 

XVIII. 

President-elect        .          .          , 

XIX. 

Going  to  Washington       .          . 

»AG« 

I 

9 

i7 

23 

30 

39 

50 

58 

67 

75 

83 

97 

104 

116 

124 

*35 

'43 
158 

170 


IX 


CONTENTS 

CM  AFTER 

FAGS 

XX. 

The  Inauguration           .          .          . 

.    179 

XXI. 

Called  to  the  Helm  in  a  Storm 

.     .  187 

XXII. 

"And  the  War  Came" 

.     198 

XXIII. 

In  the  Gloom  of  Defeat 

.    215 

XXIV. 

A  Break  in  the  Clouds  . 

.    234 

XXV. 

t€  Don't  swap  Horses  while  crossing  th 

e  River"      253 

XXVI. 

Life  in  the  White  House 

.      266 

XXVII. 

Lincoln  and  his  Children 

.      284 

XXVIII. 

Lincoln  and  his  Soldiers 

292 

XXIX. 

Lincoln  the  Emancipator 

.     3°7 

XXX. 

Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet 

.     322 

XXXI. 

Lincoln  and  his  Generals 

.         •     338 

XXXII. 

Lincoln  in  Victory 

.     358 

XXXIII. 

The  Death  of  Lincoln  . 

•     382 

XXXIV. 

Sorrow  of  the  World    .          •          • 

•     397 

XXXV. 

A  Course  in  Lincoln     . 

.     407 

XXXVI. 

Lessons  from  Lincoln    •          .          • 

•     417 

LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


*■ 

Abraham  Lincoln            .... 
The  Birthplace  of  Lincoln 

.   Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

6 

An  Example  of  Lincoln's  Craftsmanship    . 

.         .         .       36 

Lincoln  in  his  Prime      .... 

.     130 

Lincoln  at  Antietam       .... 

.     230 

An  Interesting  Lincoln  Portrait         .          • 

.     254 

Mrs.  Lincoln        ...... 

►         •         •     270 

The  President  and  his  Son       .          •          •          . 

.     288 

ABRAHAM    UNCOLN 


CHAPTER  I 

A   CHILD    OF    POVERTY 


Abraham  Lincoln  born  to  Thomas  and  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  in 
a  log  cabin  on  a  farm  near  Hodgdenville,  La  Rue  County,  Ken- 
tucky, February  12,  1809.  —  Kentucky  then  a  frontier  state, 
to  which  Abraham's  grandfather  came  about  1780,  and  where 
in  1784  he  was  killed  by  the  Indians.  —  Narrow  escape  of 
Abraham's  father,  who  became  a  wandering  laborer,  unable 
to  read  or  write.  —  His  rollicking  marriage  feast,  June  12,  1806. 
—  Abraham's  privations  in  childhood.  —  His  tribute  to  a  soldier 
of  1812. — Troubled  by  a  bad  land  title  and  by  slavery,  the 
family  leave  Kentucky  to  make  a  new  home  in  a  free  state. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  to  poverty  and 
ignorance.  A  rude  log  cabin  on  a  poor,  scrub  farm 
was  his  birthplace.  His  father  could  not  read  and 
could  barely  write  his  name.  His  mother  could 
both  read  and  write,  but  she  knew  little  of  books 
or  the  world. 

Their  home  was  on  the  Kentucky  frontier,  and 
there  was  not  yet  a  state  in  all  the  West  that  lay 
beyond  them.  Kentucky  itself  had  been  a  savage 
waste  only  a  few  years  before,  that  "dark  and  bloody 
ground"  on  which  no  white  man  had  set  foot.  The 
generation  of  bold  pioneers  who  had  threaded  their 
way  over  the  Alleghanies  in  the  steps  of  Daniel 
Boone  were  still  on  the  scene,  and  the  boy  Lincoln 

B  I 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


heard  from  their  lips  the  moving  story  of  how  they 
had  hewn  a  path  for  civilization  across  the  mountains 
and  wrested  peace  from  the  roving  red  men  in  hard- 
fought  battles. 

His  own  grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln,  for 
whom  he  was  named  had  been  one  of  that  band 
of  brave  homeseekers.  This  elder  Abraham,  like 
most  of  the  Kentucky  settlers,  came  from  Virginia. 
He  found  the  land  a  wilderness.  The  buffalo 
roamed  the  blue-grass  fields,  and  as  Boone  said, 
"were  more  frequent  than  I  have  seen  cattle  in 
the  settlements,  browsing  on  the  leaves  of  the  cane, 
or  cropping  the  herbage  on  these  extensive  plains, 
fearless  because  ignorant  of  the  violence  of  man." 

Warlike  tribes  of  Indians  lurked  in  the  giant 
forests,  and  the  white  men,  clad  in  skins,  needed 
always  to  be  on  guard  for  their  lives.  They  were 
as  ready  with  the  knife  as  with  the  rifle,  and  could 
outrun  and  outfight  the  Indian.  They  were  of  the 
same  daring  breed  as  the  hardy  men  who  have 
pushed  the  frontier  westward  to  the  Pacific  and 
been  the  pathfinders  of  the  nation. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  pioneer,  took  up  a  tract 
of  land  near  where  the  city  of  Louisville  now  stands 
and  built  his  home  on  it.  There  he  was  killed  by 
the  Indians  while  opening  a  farm.  He  was  going 
to  his  day's  work  in  the  clearing  when  a  shot  rang 

2 


A   CHILD    OF   POVERTY 


out  from  the  brush  and  he  fell  dead.  His  three 
sons  were  with  him  at  the  time.  One  of  the  boys 
started  on  a  run  to  summon  aid  from  the  nearest  fort, 
for  there  were  forts  all  over  Kentucky,  in  which  the 
people  gathered  and  defended  themselves  when 
attacked. 

Another  son  fled  to  the  cabin  for  a  rifle.  Seizing 
the  gun  he  looked  out  and  saw  an  Indian  stooping 
over  the  third  and  youngest  boy,  who  had  been 
left  beside  the  murdered  father.  To  save  him 
from  the  hands  of  the  savage  he  must  shoot 
quickly  through  a  crack  between  the  logs  of  the 
cabin  wall,  at  the  risk  of  killing  his  baby  brother. 
He  aimed  at  a  white  ornament  on  the  Indian's 
breast  and  fired.  His  aim  was  true,  and  the  red 
foe  pitched  forward  dead.  By  this  narrow  chance 
the  little  fellow,  Thomas,  was  spared  to  be  the 
father  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  elder  Abraham  was  a  man  of  some  thrift, 
for  when  he  sold  his  property  in  Virginia  the  sale 
brought  him  $600,  and  he  was  a  man  of  some  spirit, 
else  he  would  not  have  been  a  Kentucky  pioneer. 
His  grandson  has  said  of  him  that  he  was  a  member 
of  one  of  the  "  undistinguished  families  —  second 
families  perhaps  I  should  say,"  but  the  younger 
Abraham  lived  and  died  without  any  definite  knowl- 
edge of  his  grandfather's  origin.     "I  am  more  con* 

3 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


cerned,"  he  said,  "to  know  what  his  grandson 
will  be."  He  knew  only  of  a  "vague  tradition" 
that  the  grandfather  had  come  from  Pennsylvania 
to  Virginia.  Those  who  sought  to  set  up  ancestral 
claims  for  him  failed  to  arouse  his  interest  in  the 
subject. 

It  is  the  accepted  belief  now  that  he  was  descended 
from  a  Massachusetts  family  which  migrated  to 
Pennsylvania,  thence  to  Virginia,  and  finally  to 
Kentucky.  This,  moreover,  is  not  a  very  proud 
boast,  for  his  branch  of  the  Massachusetts  Lincolns 
was  wholly  unknown  to  fame  and  fortune.  Thus 
his  descent  has  been  traced  through  seven 
generations,  disclosing  four  farmers,  a  miller,  a 
blacksmith,  and  a  weaver. 

All  that  is  known  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  grand- 
father, indicates  that  he  measured  up  to  the  average 
of  the  men  around  him,  the  sturdy  state  builders 
who  founded  the  first  commonwealth  of  the  West. 
In  his  untimely  death,  his  family  suffered  a  dire 
misfortune.  The  new  home  was  broken  up.  The 
widow  moved  to  another  county,  while  the  boy 
who  shot  the  Indian  was  so  embittered  by  his  ex- 
perience that  for  some  time  he  hunted  the  redskins 
in  a  passion  for  revenge. 

Under  the  law,  most  of  the  property  went  to  the 
oldest  son.      Thus  Thomas,  the  youngest,  was  left 

4 


A   CHILD   OF   POVERTY 


poor  and  "grew  up  literally  without  education/' 
a  "wandering,  laboring  boy,"  as  his  famous  son  has 
recorded.  He  developed  into  a  man  of  stalwart 
body,  five  feet  ten  inches  in  height,  and  was  honest 
and  sober.  Ambition,  however,  seemed  to  be  crushed 
in  him  by  the  hard  circumstances  of  his  youth  and, 
drifting  about  from  one  job  to  another,  he  steadily 
sank  in  social  condition.  He  was  as  often  called 
"Linkern"  or  "Linkorn"  as  Lincoln,  because  he 
himself  did  not  know  how  to  spell  his  name. 

Finally  he  became  a  carpenter  and  married  Nancy 
Hanks,  the  niece  of  the  man  in  whose  shop  he  worked. 
The  Hankses  had  come  from  Virginia  in  the  same 
party  with  the  Lincolns,  and  it  had  been  Nancy's 
ill  fortune  to  be  set  adrift,  an  orphan,  much  after 
the  manner  of  her  husband's  lot  in  life.  She  was 
regarded  as  handsome  in  her  girlhood,  and  one 
old  neighbor  declared  long  afterward,  "The  Hanks 
girls  were  great  at  camp-meetings.  They  were  the 
finest  singers  and  shouters  in  our  county." 

The  union  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks 
was  celebrated  in  the  rollicking  manner  of  the  time 
and  place.  Bear  meat,  venison,  wild  turkey,  and 
duck  graced  the  feast.  There  was  maple  sugar, 
"  swung  on  a  string  to  bite  off  for  coffee  or  whiskey," 
there  was  syrup  in  big  gourds,  there  were  peaches 
and  wild  honey,  and  a  sheep  was  cooked  whole  over 

5 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


wood  coals  in  a  pit.  When  Thomas  went  to  house- 
keeping he  was  not  so  poor  as  to  be  without  a  cow, 
and  he  had  "a  good  feather  bed,  a  loom  and  wheel." 
He  took  his  bride  to  a  little  cabin  in  the  village  no 
larger  than  one  room  of  an  ordinary  dwelling. 

In  spirit  Nancy,  who  was  twenty-three  at  her 
marriage,  was  much  the  superior  of  her  twenty-eight- 
year-old  husband,  and  she  tried  her  best  to  teach  him 
to  read  and  write.  His  son  frankly  confessed, 
however,  that  his  father  "never  did  more  in  the 
way  of  writing  than  to  bunglingly  write  his  own 
name." 

With  the  birth  of  their  first  child,  a  daughter, 
the  Lincolns  were  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
family  could  not  be  supported  on  what  a  carpenter 
could  earn  in  a  community  where  most  men  built 
their  homes  with  their  own  hands,  and  they  moved 
to  a  farm  near  the  village.  There,  in  a  mere  hut, 
on  those  poor,  barren  acres,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
born  to  Thomas  and  Nancy.  His  only  cradle  was 
his  good  mother's  arms.  His  only  playmate  in 
his  earliest  childhood  was  his  sister.  His  play- 
ground was  the  lonely  forest.  He  had  no  toys,  for 
toys  cost  money,  and  money  was  hardly  ever  seen 
in  the  Lincoln  home. 

The  father  must  raise  or  shoot  what  they  ate, 
and   the   mother's    restless    fingers   must   spin    and 

6 


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A   CHILD    OF   POVERTY 


weave  what  they  wore.  Free  schools  were  then 
unknown  in  Kentucky;  but  his  mother,  poor  as  she 
was,  insisted  on  sending  Abraham  and  his  sister 
to  a  teacher.  He  could  fish  in  the  Big  South  Fork, 
and  once,  as  he  was  coming  from  the  creek,  the 
patriotic  spirit  aroused  in  his  home  by  the  War  of 
1812,  then  in  progress,  was  put  to  the  test.  "I  had 
been  fishing  one  day,"  he  said  years  afterward, 
"and  caught  a  little  fish,  which  I  was  taking  home. 
I  met  a  soldier  in  the  road  and,  having  been  told 
that  we  must  be  good  to  the  soldiers,  I  gave  him  my 
fish." 

After  a  few  years  of  struggling,  Thomas  Lincoln 
began  to  long  for  the  newer  country  to  the  west. 
The  deed  to  his  place  was  in  dispute  and  he  could 
not  afford  to  buy  another  farm,  because  Kentucky 
was  rapidly  becoming  a  settled  state  and  its  good 
land  was  valuable.  Moreover,  the  people  with 
profitable  farms  were  slaveholders.  There  were 
very  few  slaves  in  the  Lincoln  neighborhood,  it  is 
true;  the  soil  was  not  rich  enough  for  such  care- 
less labor.  Still,  Abraham  Lincoln  has  said  that 
his  father's  "removal  was  partly  on  account  of 
slavery,  but  chiefly  on  account  of  the  difficulty  in 
land  titles." 

The  claim  to  the  farm  was  sold  for  400  gallons 
of  whiskey  and  $20  in  money,  the  whole  amounting 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


to  $300.  In  those  days,  when  there  was  no  govern- 
ment tax  on  alcoholic  spirits,  any  farmer  was  free  to 
set  up  a  still  and  make  his  corn  into  whiskey.  There 
was  indeed  little  else  to  do  with  corn,  for  there  were 
no  railroads  to  carry  it  to  market,  and  it  seldom 
sold  for  more  than  ten  cents  a  bushel.  When  made 
into  whiskey,  however,  it  was  easily  traded.  It  was 
almost  as  good  as  money,  which  was  extremely 
scarce. 

After  Thomas  had  built  a  raft,  he  loaded  the 
whiskey  and  his  kit  of  tools  on  it.  Leaving  the 
family  behind,  he  floated  down  the  creek  to  the, 
Ohio  River  and  then  across  to  the  Indiana  shore, 
where  he  chose  some  timber  land  for  his  new  farm. 

On  his  return  to  Kentucky,  the  family  made 
ready  to  go  with  him  to  their  Indiana  home.  The 
last  sad  duty  of  the  mother  was  to  take  Abraham 
and  his  sister  to  the  burial  place  of  her  third  child, 
and  there  drop  her  tears  upon  the  sod  before  leaving 
forever  the  little  grave  in  its  unmarked  desolation. 


CHAPTER  II 

LIFE    IN  THE    INDIANA   WILDERNESS 


Removal  of  the  Lincolns  to  a  farm  near  Gentryville,  Spencer 
County,  Indiana,  in  the  almost  savage  wilds  of  a  new  state,  in 
1816.  — Their  home,  amid  a  primitive  people,  a  mere  hut,  with 
no  floor  but  the  bare  earth.  —  Abraham  sleeping  on  a  bed  of 
leaves  in  the  loft  and  growing  up  without  education.  —  Wield- 
ing the  axe  in  the  primeval  forest.  —  His  one  shot.  —  Death  of 
his  mother,  October  5,  181 8.  —  A  desolate  cabin.  —  Marriage 
of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Sarah  Bush  Johnston  at  Elizabethtown, 
Kentucky,  December  2,  181 9. — The  new  mother  transformed 
the  rude  home.  —  A  family  of  nine  living  in  one  room. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  only  seven  years  old 
when,  his  sister  beside  him,  he  trudged  behind  his 
father  and  mother  into  the  trackless  wilds  of  southern 
Indiana.  All  the  possessions  of  the  family  were 
loaded  on  the  backs  of  two  borrowed  horses,  and 
three  days  were  required  to  make  the  journey  of 
eighteen  miles  from  the  Ohio  River  to  the  new  home 
on  Little  Pigeon  Creek,  for  Thomas  Lincoln  had  to 
cut  his  way  with  an  axe  through  the  primeval 
forest.  The  land  he  had  chosen  was  covered  with 
a  dense  growth  of  timber,  and  no  shelter  awaited 
him  and  his  family.  He  must  hasten  to  cut  down 
a  lot  of  young  saplings  in  order  to  build  a  shed  of 
poles.     This  was  the  home.     It  shielded  the  family 

9 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


only  on  three  sides,  —  an  open-faced  camp,  as  it  was 
called. 

The  home  built,  a  field  had  to  be  quickly  cleared 
on  which  to  raise  the  necessary  food.  Abraham, 
young  as  he  was,  lent  a  hand,  for  he  was 
large  for  his  age  and  could  swing  an  axe.  While 
his  father  assailed  the  big  trees,  he  chopped  away 
the  rank  underbrush.  He  dropped  the  seed  in  the 
stumpy  field  in  the  light  of  the  moon  and  planted 
potatoes  in  the  dark  of  the  moon,  as  all  the  wise 
folk  of  the  region  did.  The  minds  of  the  early 
Hoosiers  were  filled  with  ancient  superstitions,  and 
they  were  governed  in  their  daily  lives  by  signs  and 
charms. 

It  was  a  wild  country,  inhabited  by  a  primitive 
race.  Indiana  had  only  just  been  admitted  to  the 
Union  as  a  state  when  the  Lincolns  took  up  their 
home  within  its  borders.  The  court-house  of  the 
county  in  which  they  lived  was  made  of  logs.  The 
grand  jury  sat  on  a  log  in  the  woods,  and  it  was 
noted  of  one  trial  jury  that  there  was  not  a  pair 
of  shoes  among  them,  for  nearly  every  one  wore 
moccasins. 

The  settlers  dressed,  as  the  Indians  before  them, 
in  the  skin  of  the  deer,  and  never  were  without 
their  rifles  and  their  long  side  knives.  A  farmer's 
onlv  implements  were  the  axe,  the  rifle,  the  maul, 


LIFE   IN   THE   INDIANA  WILDERNESS 

the  plough,  and  the  scythe.  The  brier  of  the  wild 
thorn  was  the  only  pin  in  a  woman's  toilet.  Tea 
was  brewed  from  roots  dug  in  the  woods. 

House  raisings  and  hunting  parties  were  the 
main  social  pleasures  known  to  the  widely  scattered 
pioneers,  aside  from  the  rare  event  of  a  wedding, 
when  the  people  gathered  uninvited,  and,  with 
practical  jokes  and  all  manner  of  boisterous  sport, 
persecuted  the  poor  bride  and  groom  by  night  and 
day.  On  the  hunts,  all  the  game  was  driven  into 
a  common  center,  where  it  was  slaughtered.  Every 
table  depended  on  the  rifle.  There  was  a  salt 
"lick"  in  the  creek  near  the  Lincoln  cabin,  to  which 
the  deer  came,  and  thus  Thomas  easily  kept  his 
family  supplied  with  meat. 

Abraham  cared  nothing  for  shooting,  and  the  one 
record  of  his  hunting  comes  from  his  own  pen  in 
after  life.  "A  few  days  after  the  completion  of 
his  eighth  year,"  he  wrote  of  himself,  "in  the  ab- 
sence of  his  father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  approached 
the  new  log  cabin,  and  Abraham,  with  a  rifle  gun, 
standing  inside,  shot  through  a  crack  and  killed 
one  of  them.  He  has  never  since  pulled  trigger  on 
any  larger  game." 

This  new  log  cabin  was  built  by  Thomas  Lincoln 
the  second  year  of  his  life  in  Indiana.  His  family 
lived  in  the  open-faced  pole  camp  through  all  the 

ii 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


freezing  storms  of  one  winter.  In  the  spring  the 
miserable  habitation  was  turned  over  to  some 
Hankses,  who  had  followed  their  cousin  Nancy 
from  Kentucky,  and  the  Lincolns  moved  into  the 
new  home;  but  even  its  walls  apparently  had  cracks 
through  which  a  rifle  could  be  fired  at  a  wild  turkey. 

Moreover,  it  had  neither  a  floor  nor  a  window. 
The  poor  dwellers  within  its  rude  shelter  actually 
lived  on  the  bare  earth,  which  turned  to  mud  in 
the  winter  thaws.  To  shut  out  the  sleet  and  snow, 
there  was  not  even  a  skin  to  hang  over  the  hole 
which  served  for  a  doorway.  In  one  corner  of  the 
only  room,  two  poles  stuck  between  the  logs  made 
a  bedstead.  Nimbly  climbing  up  on  pegs  driven 
into  the  wall,  Abraham  slept  on  a  heap  of  loose 
leaves  in  the  loft.  Not  a  piece  of  crockery  was 
there  in  the  cabin.  Tin  and  pewter  and  gourds 
were  the  table  ware. 

The  aim  was  to  raise  only  enough  corn  to  keep 
the  meal  box  supplied  and  enough  wheat  for  cakes 
on  Sunday.  It  hardly  paid  to  raise  more,  for  corn 
brought  little  or  nothing,  and  wheat  only  twenty- 
five  cents  a  bushel,  so  far  was  the  farm  from  the 
market.  Besides,  Thomas  Lincoln  never  was  a 
good  farmer,  and  sometimes  the  family  had  nothing 
but  potatoes  to  eat.  A  neighbor  declaies  that  even 
these   were   not   always    cooked,   for   he    recollects 

12 


LIFE  IN   THE   INDIANA  WILDERNESS 

eating  raw  potatoes  at  the  Lincolns' ;  it  was  not 
always  easy  to  build  a  fire  before  the  days  of  matches. 
Abraham  Lincoln  long  afterward  said  with  simple 
sadness  in  speaking  of  this  period  of  his  life,  "They 
were  pretty  pinching  times." 

Malaria  lurked  in  the  deep  glades  of  the  forest, 
and  pestilence  was  bred  by  the  ignorant  habits  of 
the  people.  A  large  part  of  the  population  was 
stricken  by  a  disease  known  to  the  backwoods  as 
milk  sickness.  The  wife  of  Thomas  Lincoln, 
crushed  in  spirit  by  the  hard  fortunes  of  the  family 
through  two  winters,  and  bent  in  body  under  the 
burdens  of  a  frontier  household,  fell  an  easy  prey 
to  this  epidemic. 

There  was  no  physician  within  thirty-five  miles, 
and  the  swift  fever  burned  her  life  out  while  her 
helpless  husband  and  children  watched  by  her  bed. 
As  the  end  drew  near,  Abraham  knelt  sobbing  be- 
side his  dying  mother,  while  she  laid  her  hand  on 
his  young  head  and  gave  him  her  last  message, 
ielling  him  to  be  good  to  his  father  and  sister,  and 
calling  on  all  to  be  good  to  one  another,  to  love  their 
kin,  and  to  worship  God. 

When  the  wearied  soul  was  gone,  the  broken 
body  was  shrived  by  the  Lincolns  and  the  Hankses, 
there  in  the  isolation  of  their  forest  home.  Thomas 
himself  felled  the  pine  tree  and  cut  out  the  green 

*3 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


boards,  which  he  pegged  together  for  the  rude 
coffin.  In  a  shallow  grave  on  a  knoll  near  by,  with- 
out a  spoken  prayer,  but  bitterly  wept  by  children 
and  kindred,  all  that  could  die  of  Nancy  Hanks 
Lincoln  was  tenderly  lowered  to  that  rest  which 
was  denied  her  in  life.  As  long  as  he  lived,  her 
son  held  her  in  reverence  as  his  "  angel  mother,"  and 
there  is  a  tradition  that  sometime  after  her  burial, 
the  sorrowing  boy  induced  a  traveling  preacher 
to  deliver  a  sermon  and  say  a  prayer  above  her 
grave. 

With  this  death,  that  which  made  a  home  of  the 
bare  hut,  a  wife's  devotion  and  a  mother's  love, 
was  gone,  and  the  widower  and  the  orphaned  were 
left  in  desolation  to  face  a  hard  and  dreary  winter. 
After  a  short  time  of  despair,  the  father  rose  to  the 
practical  necessity  of  his  situation  and  went  back  to 
Kentucky  to  seek  out  a  new  head  for  his  house  and 
a  mother  for  his  family. 

On  this  mission,  he  made  a  wise  choice.  Find- 
ing that  one  whom  he  had  known  in  his  youth  was 
widowed,  he  courted  her  with  such  despatch 
that  they  were   married  the    next    morning. 

When  Thomas  returned  to  Little  Pigeon  Creek 
with  his  tall,  curly-haired  bride  and  her  son  and 
two  daughters,  a  four-horse  team  was  needed  to 
carry  her  property,  for  she  was  rich  in  comparison 


LIFE   IN   THE   INDIANA   WILDERNESS 

J  — ^— —  '  '  "" '    "        ' Ill— — »■      III  II  I  T— »^— 3 

with  her  groom.  The  forlorn,  neglected  little  boy, 
Abraham,  who  was  growing  up  like  a  weed,  looked 
with  wondering  eyes  as  he  helped  unload  the  fine 
ihings.  A  bureau,  that  must  have  cost  $50,  was 
among  them.  There  was  an  extra  feather  bed 
to  take  the  place  of  his  pallet  in  the  loft,  and  at 
last  he  was  to  have  a  pillow  for  his  head.  There 
were  also  homespun  blankets  and  quilts,  a  flax 
wheel,    and    a    soap    kettle. 

The  new  mistress  ordered  a  wash-stand  to  be 
set  up  beside  the  doorway,  and  she  scrubbed  the 
children  and  fitted  them  out  with  decent  clothing. 
She  gave  Abraham  a  linsey-woolsey  shirt  of  her 
own  make  to  take  the  place  of  his  old  deerskin  shirt. 
Her  husband  was  driven  to  make  and  hang  a  door, 
lay  a  floor,  cut  a  window,  and  to  grease  some  paper 
with  which  to  cover  it  and  let  in  the  light. 

Abraham  had  so  far  forgotten  the  little  he  had 
learned  in  the  Kentucky  school  that  now,  though 
ten  years  old,  he  could  not  write.  Yet  somehow 
he  had  become  the  leader  of  the  household.  With- 
out schools  or  books,  his  only  chance  to  learn  was 
from  wayfarers,  and  on  such  occasions  he  showed 
a  thirst  for  knowledge  which  annoyed  his  father, 
who  could  not  sympathize  with  the  inquiring  mind 
of  his  boy.  As  he  sat  perched  on  the  fence  in  front 
of  the  cabin,  he  would  ask  questions  as  long  as  any 

i5 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


passer-by  would  tarry  to  answer  him,  or  until  his 
father  sent  him   away. 

One  day  a  wagon  broke  down  in  the  road,  and 
the  wife  and  two  daughters  of  the  owner  stayed  at 
the  Lincolns'  until  it  was  repaired.  "The  woman 
had  books,"  as  Abraham  recalled  in  later  life,  "and 
read  us  stories.  They  were  the  first  I  ever  heard." 
There  never  had  been  a  book  or  a  newspaper  in 
the  house,  and  he  never  forgot  the  sight  of  those 
pages  nor  the  woman  who,  by  the  chance  of  a 
breakdown  on  the  road,  opened  to  his  mind  the 
field  of  printed   knowledge. 

Hope  and  happiness  entered  the  little  cabin  in 
the  wilderness  at  the  call  of  its  thrifty  and  vigorous 
housewife,  crowded  though  it  was,  for  with  the 
husband  and  wife,  their  five  children,  and  two 
Hankses  who  had  come  to  live  with  them,  a  family 
of  nine  dwelt  in  peace  in  its  one  room.  There 
seemed  to  be  a  special  harmony  between  Mrs. 
Lincoln  and  Abraham.  "His  mind,"  she  said, 
"and  mine  —  what  little  I  had  —  seemed  to  run 
together."  She  shared  her  heart  with  her  hus- 
band's children  and  sanctified  the  name  of  step- 


mother. 


16 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    AWAKENING    OF    AMBITION 


Learning  life's  lessons  and  building  character  amid  poverty,  toH, 
and  sorrow.  —  Abraham  starting  to  school  at  ten.  —  Walking 
nine  miles  a  day  to  and  fro.  —  Eager  to  study. — Ciphering  on 
a  wooden  shovel  and  making  notes  on  the  logs  of  his  cabin.  — 
His  passion  for  books  —  borrowing  and  reading  all  the  volumes 
within  a  fifty-mile  circle.  —  Working  three  days  to  pay  for 
a  damaged  book.  —  Only  a  few  months'  schooling  in  all. 

"It  was  a  wild  region,  with  many  bears  and 
other  wild  animals  still  in  the  woods.  There  I 
grew  up.  There  were  some  schools,  so  called, 
but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of  a  teacher 
beyond  '  readin',  writin',  and  cipherin'  to  the  rule 
of  three/  If  a  straggler  supposed  to  understand 
Latin  happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neighborhood, 
he  was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was  ab- 
solutely nothing  to  excite  ambition  for  education. " 
—  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  his  own  life  sketch. 

Nevertheless  it  was  in  those  backwoods  of  Indiana 
that  the  ambition  of  Lincoln  was  awakened.  There, 
out  of  poverty  and  toil  and  sorrow,  the  sturdy  nature 
of  the  child  was  woven,  and  there  the  man  was 
born,  sprung  from  the  very  earth.  The  wild  forest 
was  his  university,  and  it  taught  him  more  than 
c  17 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


many  boys  learn  in  academic  groves,  for  it  taught 
him  to  use  his  hand  as  well  as  his  head,  and  to  think 
and  act  for  himself.  His  mental  growth  was  slow 
and  did  not  cease  while  he  lived;  but  morally,  his 
character  seemed  to  come  almost  to  its  full  stature 
in  mere  boyhood. 

His  noble  stepmother  insisted  that  all  her  children 
should  be  sent  to  school,  though  the  fee  for  the 
teacher  must  have  been  a  heavy  burden  for  the 
Lincolns.  The  father  knew  nothing  of  school,  and 
cared  no  more.  To  him  it  was  a  sheer  waste  of 
time,  and  he  needed  what  the  labor  of  the  boys 
could   earn. 

There  were  no  schoolhouses  in  southern  Indiana. 
A  roving  teacher  could  hold  sessions  only  in  some 
tumble-down  cabin.  Mean  as  the  opportunity 
was  to  gain  an  education  in  such  a  hovel,  the  boy 
Lincoln  seized  it  eagerly.  At  one  time  he  had  to 
walk  nine  miles  a  day  in  going  to  and  from  school. 

The  road  he  traveled  probably  was  no  more  than 
a  mere  deer  path  through  the  lonely  woods,  but  he 
loved  the  solitude.  The  noon  lunch,  which  he 
carried  in  his  pocket,  was  only  a  corn-dodger,  a 
cake  made  from  coarse  meal.  He  would  study 
all  day  Sunday,  for  there  was  no  church  to  attend, 
and  every  minute  he  could  steal  as  he  went  about 
his  Saturday  chores  he  gave  to  his  lessons.     The 

18 


THE   AWAKENING   OF   AMBITION 

poor  father  hated  the  sight  of  a  thing  so  useless  to 
himself  as  a  book,  and  the  stepmother  had  to  beg 
him  to  let  Abraham   read   at  home. 

To  practise  his  lessons  in  arithmetic  he  used 
a  wooden  shovel,  for  he  had  no  slate,  paper  was 
scarce,  and  there  was  not  a  lead  pencil  in  the  house. 
When  he  had  covered  the  shovel  with  his  sums 
done  in  charcoal,  he  would  scrape  off  the  figures  and 
thus  be  ready  for  a  fresh  start.  He  scrawled  his 
notes  from  his  books  all  over  the  logs  of  his  cabin 
and  on  any  piece  of  board  he  could  pick  up.  This 
spirit  naturally  sent  him  to  the  head  of  his  class  with 
a  bound.  He  gained  such  readiness  in  spelling  that 
he  soon  "spelled  down"  the  entire  school,  and  at 
last  was  barred  from  spelling  matches,  so  it  is  said. 

Writing  was  another  of  his  favorite  studies,  and 
he  acquired  a  good,  clear  hand.  This  assured 
him  the  proud  position  of  the  letter-writer  for 
the  family  and  their  illiterate  neighbors.  One  of 
the  earliest  Lincoln  manuscripts  in  existence  was 
written  by  him  as  a  form  for  a  friend: — 

"  Good  boys,  who  to  their  books  apply, 
Will  all  be  great  men  by  and  by." 

He  no  sooner  could  read  than  he  took  fire  with 
a  passion  for  books.  He  had  none  at  home,  and  there 
was    no    public    library.     Wherever    he    heard    of 

m 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


a  book,  near  or  far,  he  went  afoot  to  see  the  owner, 
and  borrowed  it  and  kept  it  until  he  had  de- 
voured all  there  was  between  its  covers.  In  this 
way  he  found  and  read  "iEsop's  Fables,"  Bunyan's 
"Pilgrim's  Progress,"  "Robinson  Crusoe,"  and  a 
history  of  the  United  States. 

To  retain  for  reference  the  things  he  liked  best, 
he  bought  a  note-book,  into  which  he  copied  his 
favorite  selections.  His  pen  was  made  from  the 
quill  of  a  turkey  buzzard  and  his  ink  from  the 
juice  of  a  brier  root. 

A  dictionary  coming  to  his  hand,  he  read  it, 
page  by  page,  day  after  day,  until  the  last  ray  of 
light  had  faded.  In  later  years  he  said  that  if 
any  one  used  a  word  or  phrase  in  his  hearing  which 
he  could  not  understand,  it  always  had  made  him 
angry.  He  remembered  as  a  boy  climbing  to  his 
loft  in  a  rage  more  than  once  on  this  account,  and 
walking  the  floor  far  into  the  night,  while  trying  to 
work  out  the  meaning  of  something  he  had  heard. 
He  could  not  sleep  until  he  had  solved  the  puzzle 
and  found  a  way  to  state  the  same  idea  in  the 
plainest  words. 

Even  a  copy  of  the  statutes  of  Indiana  fell  a  prey 
to  the  timber  boy's  wild  hunger  for  knowledge. 
He  read  it  through  as  eagerly  as  if  it  had  been  a 
detective    story.     Nor    was    he    poorly    rewarded, 

20 


THE   AWAKENING   OF  AMBITION 

for  it  not  only  contained  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  but  it  also  introduced  him  to 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  held,  too,  the 
Ordinance  of  1787,  by  which  Indiana  and  all 
the  country  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi 
had  been  dedicated  to  freedom  in  these  simple 
and  now  familiar  terms:  "There  shall  be  neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  said  territory, 
otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of  crime,  whereof 
the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted/'  Indeed, 
that  worn  and  forbidding  volume  gave  him  a  better 
understanding  of  the  government  of  his  country 
than  many  big  schools  impart  to  their  pupils. 

Among  his  other  borrowings  was  a  copy  of 
Weems's  "Life  of  Washington,"  from  which  he 
drew  the  inspiring  lessons  of  that  immortal  career 
and  of  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  Those  lessons 
sank  deep  into  his  youthful  mind.  After  the  lapse 
of  a  generation,  he  recalled  in  a  speech  to  the  men 
of  '6 1,  Weems's  stories  of  the  battles  fought  and 
hardships  endured  by  the  men  of  '76.  "You  all 
know,"  he  said,  "for  you  have  all  been  boys,  how 
these  early  impressions  last  longer  than  any  others. 
I  recollect  thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was, 
that  there  must  have  been  something  more  than 
common  that  those  men  struggled  for.  I  am  ex- 
ceedingly   anxious    that    that    thing  .  .  .  shall    be 

8£ 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


perpetuated  in  accordance  with  the  original  idea 
for  which  that  struggle  was  made." 

He  had  still  another  reason  for  remembering 
that  book.  He  was  so  charmed  by  the  tale  that 
he  carried  it  with  him  when  he  mounted  to  his 
loft,  and  there  he  lay  in  bed  and  read  its  pages  until 
his  bit  of  tallow  had  burned  out.  Then  he  poked 
the  volume  in  a  chink  in  the  wall,  where  he  could 
put  his  hands  on  it  the  minute  he  woke  in  the  morn- 
ing. A  driving  rain  in  the  night  came  through  the 
cracks  and  soaked  the  book.  The  man  who  had 
lent  it  to  him  claimed  damages  and  made  Lincoln 
pull  fodder  in  his  corn-field  for  three  full  days. 
Nevertheless  he  went  on  borrowing  right  and  left, 
until  he  felt  assured  he  had  read  every  book  within 
a  fifty-mile  circle. 

His  total  schooling  amounted  to  much  less  than 
a  year.  He  attended  from  time  to  time  until  he 
was  nineteen;  but  each  time  his  father  felt  obliged 
to  take  him  out  after  a  few  weeks.  When  his  labor 
was  not  required  at  home,  the  father  was  in  need 
of  the  few  cents  a  day  which  the  boy  could  earn 
by  working  for  other  farmers,  for  the  wolf  of  want 
was  always  at  the  door  of  the  Lincoln  cabin. 


<^ 


CHAPTER  IV 

A   BOYHOOD    OF   TOIL 


Stories  of  the  giant  strength  of  the  youthful  Lincoln.  —  Hired  out 
by  his  father  at  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  —  Rated  as  lazy  by  his 
employers,  because  his  heart  was  not  in  his  rough  work  while 
he  dreamed  of  the  great  world  without.  —  Walking  fifteen  miles 
to  hear  lawyers  argue  in  court  and  haranguing  his  fellow-laborers 
from  stumps  in  the  fields.  —  Writing  essays  on  morals  and 
politics.  —  Hailed  as  the  village  jester.  —  Became  a  flatboat- 
man.  —  How  he  earned  his  first  dollar.  —  The  earliest  monu- 
ment to  Lincoln  reared  by  a  boy  friend. 

Lincoln's  figure  shot  up  rapidly  from  his  eleventh 
year,  and  at  nineteen  he  had  grown  to  his  full  height 
of  six  feet,  four  inches.  He  was  wiry,  and  of  rugged 
health,  swarthy  in  complexion,  and  his  face  was 
shriveled  not  unlike  that  of  an  old  man.  The 
strangely  serious  look,  so  marked  in  his  bearing 
through  life,  had  already  come  into  his  countenance. 

The  unreflecting  rustics  about  him  simply  set  him 
down  as  queer,  as  they  saw  this  youth  of  strange 
moods  pass  in  a  flash  from  gay  to  grave.  His  tight 
buckskin  breeches  were  "drawn  up"  in  the  rains, 
until  twelve  inches  of  blue,  bony  shins  were  exposed 
in  the  gap  between  them  and  the  tops  of  his  low 
shoes,  and  on  his  head  he  wore  a  coonskin  cap. 
"Longshanks"  was   his   descriptive   nickname. 

Wonderful  stories  are  told  of  the  giant  strength 

23 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


of  his  boyhood,  of  his  picking  up  and  moving  a 
chicken  house,  weighing  600  pounds,  and  bearing 
off  a  great  log  while  three  men  were  disputing  as 
to  how  they  should  unite  to  lift  it.  "  His  axe  would 
flash  and  bite  into  a  sugar  tree  or  a  sycamore," 
Dennis  Hanks  has  said,  "and  if  you  heard  him 
felling  trees  in  a  clearing,  you  would  say  there  were 
three  men  at  work  by  the  way  the  trees  fell." 

Lincoln  and  his  sister  were  both  "hired  out" 
to  the  more  prosperous  neighbors,  whenever  there 
was  a  demand  for  their  services.  One  woman  re- 
called, in  her  old  age,  the  time  when  the  boy  worked 
for  her  husband  and  slept  in  their  loft.  She  praised 
him  for  knowing  how  "to  keep  his  place"  and  for 
not  coming  where  he  was  not  wanted.  He  would 
lift  his  hat  and  bow  when  he  entered  her  house, 
and  was  tender  and  kind,  "like  his  sister." 

A  day's  work  was  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and  for 
this  he  received  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  but  if  he  missed 
any  slight  part  of  the  long  day,  he  was  docked. 
The  reward  for  his  labor  did  not  go  to  him,  how- 
ever, but  to  his  father,  to  whom  he  owed  all  his 
time  until  the  noon  of  his  twenty-first  birthday. 
He  had  no  spending  money  and  felt  little  need  of 
any.  Money  was  not  what  he  longed  for.  It  was 
not  the  object  of  the  ambition  which  gnawed  like 
hunger  within  him. 

24 


A   BOYHOOD    OF   TOIL 


Already  he  stood  apart  and  alone.  He  was  with, 
but  not  of,  the  backwoodsmen,  among  whom  he 
toiled  and  jested.  His  thoughts  and  his  dreams 
had  borne  him  out  of  their  forest  world  and  far 
away  from  the  tasks  of  his  hands.  His  heart  was 
not  in  hoeing  and  wood-chopping.  He  slaughtered 
hogs,  swung  the  axe  and  the  scythe,  and  wielded 
the  flail,  but  he  could  not  put  the  man  into  the  work. 
His  employers  knew  it  and  rightfully  found  fault. 
"I  say  he  was  awfully  lazy,"  one  of  them  insisted 
nearly  half  a  century  afterward.  "He  worked 
for  me,  but  he  was  always  reading  and  thinking. 
He  said  to  me  one  day  his  father  taught  him  to 
work,  but  he  didn't  teach  him  to  love  it." 

This  man  did  not  take  into  his  calculations  the 
fact  that  his  big,  lazy  hired  hand  would  walk  farther 
and  work  harder  to  get  an  old  book  than  any  one 
else  around  him  would  walk  or  work  to  get  a  new 
dollar  bill.  In  vain  his  father  tried  to  get  such  fool- 
ishness out  of  his  son's  head  and  induce  him  to  learn 
practical  things ;  the  boy  was  a  great,  strong  fellow, 
and  it  was  time  he  made  something  out  of  himself. 

The  father  was  anxious  for  him  to  be  a  carpenter, 
but  he  could  not  excite  the  young  man's  enthusiasm. 
He  would  do  the  day's  work,  as  it  was  given  him 
to  do  and  after  his  own  fashion,  and  that  was  all. 
He  would  rather,  any  time,  tramp  off  to  the  county 

25 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


seat,  some  fifteen  miles  away,  and  listen  to  lawyers 
argue.  For  days  afterward  he  would  be  a  lawyer, 
holding  mock  trials  in  the  fields  and  delivering 
speeches  from  stumps,  while  the  other  hands  gathered 
around  him,  to  the  indignation  of  the  farmer. 

Only  one  newspaper  came  to  the  neighboring 
village,  and  Lincoln  delighted  to  go  to  the  store  and 
read  aloud  to  the  unlettered  throng  its  reports  of 
debates  in  Congress  and  its  news  from  the  great 
world.  Some  of  his  views  startled  the  entire  country- 
side. He  insisted,  for  instance,  the  earth  was  round, 
that  the  sun  did  not  move,  and  that  the  moon  did 
not  come  up  or  go  down,  but  that  instead  "we  do 
the  sinking." 

Hating  to  see  even  dumb  creatures  mistreated, 
he  wrote  an  essay  on  "  Cruelty  to  Animals,"  although 
many  years  were  to  pass  before  the  first  society  was 
formed  in  their  defence.  He  wrote  a  paper  on 
"Temperance,"  although  there  was  yet  no  organized 
novement  in  that  direction  and  the  very  word  was 
vithout  meaning  to  the  average  person. 

Humor  mingled  with  earnestness  in  the  nature 
of  the  youth.  He  joked  and  frolicked  as  well  as 
studied  and  argued.  He  wrote  rhymes  on  passing 
events  and  sometimes  had  to  back  up  his  rough 
satires  with  his  big  fists.  He  celebrated  in  verse 
the  long,  crooked  nose  of  the  man  who  made  him 

26 


A   BOYHOOD    OF   TOIL 


work  out  the  damage  to  the  borrowed  book,  and 
took  revenge  in  the  same  way  when  he  was  not 
invited  to  a  wedding  in  the  family  of  the  rich  man 
of  the  village.  If  he  began  to  tell  stories  at  the 
cross-roads  store,  the  loungers  crowded  the  place, 
and  sometimes  he  held  his  roaring  audience  until 
midnight. 

All  the  while  he  longed  for  the  wider  world 
without;  but  he  respected  his  father's  right  to  his 
labor.  He  eagerly  welcomed  the  chance  to  go 
down  to  the  river  to  help  the  ferryman  in  the  rough- 
est toil  at  thirty-seven  cents  a  day,  for  there  he  was 
at  last  on  the  great  highway  of  trade  and  travel. 
While  working  on  the  river,  he  found  his  way  to 
a  lawyer's  library,  where  he  could  read  half  the 
night. 

In  those  surroundings  he  wrote  a  paper  on  the 
"American  Government,"  in  which  he  urged  the 
necessity  of  preserving  the  Constitution  and  main- 
taining the  Union.  The  lawyer,  when  he  had  read 
this  appeal,  declared  the  "world  couldn't  beat  it," 
and  would  have  taken  him  into  his  office,  only  the 
youth  insisted  his  parents  were  so  poor  they  could 
not  spare  him  as  a  breadwinner. 

When  a  flatboatman  offered  him  $8  a  month,  he 
went  as  bow-hand,  and  thus  standing  forward,  poled 
the  craft  down  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  to  New 

27 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Orleans.  While  idling  about  the  river  before  start- 
ing on  that  voyage,  a  little  incident  happened  which 
he  always  described  as  an  important  event  in  his  life. 
It  is  the  story  of  the  way  he  earned  his  first  dollar  by 
taking  two  men  and  their  trunks  to  a  steamer  which 
waited  for  them  in  midstream. 

"I  was  about  eighteen  years  of  age,"  he  said, 
"and  belonged,  as  you  know,  to  what  they  call 
down  South  the  'scrubs.'  J  was  very  glad  to  have 
the  chance  of  earning  something,  and  supposed 
each  of  the  men  would  give  me  a  couple  of  bits. 
I  sculled  them  out  to  the  steamer.  They  got  on 
board,  and  I  lifted  the  trunks  and  put  them  on  the 
deck.  The  steamer  was  about  to  put  on  steam 
again,  when  I  called  out,  'You  have  forgotten  to 
pay  me/  Each  of  them  took  from  his  pocket  a 
silver  half-dollar  and  threw  it  on  the  bottom  of 
my  boat. 

"You  may  think  it  was  a  very  little  thing,  and 
in  these  days  it  seems  to  me  like  a  trifle,  but  it  was 
a  most  important  incident  in  my  life.  I  could 
scarcely  credit  that  I,  the  poor  boy,  had  earned 
a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day;  that  by  honest  work 
I  had  earned  a  dollar.  I  was  a  more  hopeful  and 
thoughtful  boy  from  that  time." 

When  Abraham  came  of  age,  his  father  decided 
to    leave    Indiana.     The    son   could    no    longer    be 

28 


A   BOYHOOD   OF   TOIL 


expected  to  stay  on  the  unpromising  farm  in  the 
timber,  and  his  sister  had  lately  died  in  young  wife- 
hood. One  of  the  Hankses  had  gone  to  the  new  state 
of  Illinois,  and  his  reports  of  the  country  induced 
the  Lincolns  to  follow  him. 

The  people  generally  were  sorry  to  lose  the  young 
man  whose  strong  hands  always  had  been  ready 
to  help  any  one  in  need  and  whose  droll  ways  had 
made  him  the  favorite  character  in  the  community. 
As  he  was  leaving  the  dreary  scene  of  so  much  sad- 
ness and  struggle,  a  boyhood  companion  planted 
a  cedar  in  memory  of  him,  and  that  little  tree  was 
the  first  monument  raised  in  honor  of  Abraham 
Lincoln, 


29 


CHAPTER  V 


ON  THE    PRAIRIES    OF    ILLINOIS 


The  Lincolns  leave  Indiana  for  Illinois,  March,  1830,  Abraham 
driving  his  fathers  ox  team.  —  Building  the  new  home  on  the 
Sangamon,  and  splitting  rails  for  a  fence.  —  Bidding  farewell 
to  the  humble  roof  of  his  parents.  —  Once  more  a  flatboatman 
in  C831.  —  His  strange  introduction  to  New  Salem.  —  Stirred 
to  indignation  by  the  sight  of  a  slave  auction  in  New  Orleans. 
—  Keeping  store  in  New  Salem,  where  he  arrived  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1 83 1.  —  Winning  the  title  of  "Honest  Abe."  —  Battling 
with  frontier  roughs.  —  Failure  of  the  store.  —  Studying  and 
dreaming. 

In  moving  to  Illinois,  Thomas  Lincoln  resumed 
the  westward  journey  which  his  ancestor  had  begun 
at  Plymouth  Rock  and  which  had  continued  through 
seven  generations  of  Lincolns. 

An  ox  team  drew  the  family  and  its  scanty  pos- 
sessions from  Indiana  to  Illinois,  and  Abraham 
was  the  driver.  The  wagon  wheels  were  without 
spokes,  being  mere  rounded  blocks  of  wood,  cut 
from  the  trunk  of  an  oak  tree,  and  with  a  hole  in 
the  center  for  the  axle.  There  were  neither  roads 
nor  bridges.  Creeks  and  rivers  had  to  be  forded. 
The  trails  through  the  Hoosier  forests  were  broken 
by  the  February  thaw,  while  the  prairies  of  Illinois 
were  a  sea  of  mud. 


ON   THE   PRAIRIES    OF   ILLINOIS 

Across  those  great  stretches  of  level  and  fertile 
land,  ready  to  spring  into  richest  gardens  at  the 
lightest  touch  of  man,  the  Lincolns  wended  their 
toilsome  way  until  they  came  to  the  meaner  soil 
of  the  timber  country  on  the  Sangamon  River, 
where  they  chose  to  pitch  their  new  home.  All 
the  early  settlers  shunned  the  broad,  open  country 
as  a  desert.  They  had  always  lived  in  the  woods. 
in  the  older  states  whence  they  came,  and,  though 
they  saw  the  tall  grass  waving  and  the  flowers 
rioting  in  bloom  on  these  wide  plains,  they  could 
not  believe  nature  had  been  generous  enough  to 
clear  the  land  for  the  use  of  man. 

The  Lincolns,  therefore,  as  the  rest,  sought  a 
place  like  that  which  they  had  left  in  Indiana,  and 
no  better.  There  they  went  to  felling  trees  and 
hewing  the  logs  for  their  cabin  and  ploughing  a  field 
among  the  stumps.  Abraham's  was  the  leading 
hand  in  this  work,  as  well  as  in  splitting  the  walnut 
rails  for  a  fence. 

With  the  first  winter  came  a  season  of  utter  dreari- 
ness, celebrated  in  local  history  to  this  day  as  the 
winter  of  the  deep  snow.  The  snow  lay  three  feet 
on  a  level,  when  a  freezing  rain  followed  and  crusted 
it.  For  weeks  the  people  could  not  leave  their 
cabins.  No  doubt  young  Lincoln's  desire  for 
another     life     than     that    which     had     been     his 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


from  birth,  was  strengthened  in  this  desolate 
period. 

When  spring  came,  he  left  his  father's  humble 
roof  forever.  He  was  twenty-two  and  had  duti- 
fully given  to  his  parent  all  his  labor  through  the 
years  since  childhood.  He  had  helped  him  build  his 
new  home  and  clear  and  fence  his  new  farm,  as 
well  as  plant  and  harvest  his  first  crop. 

Now,  with  his  axe  over  his  shoulder  and  all  his 
other  belongings  in  a  little  bundle,  he  started  out 
for  himself.  At  first  he  worked  about  the  neighbor- 
hood, splitting  rails  and  doing  whatever  was  given 
him  to  do.  If  he  saw  a  book,  he  read  it,  and  he 
amazed  the  rustics  with  his  speechmaking  on  various 
subjects.  He  even  ventured  to  reply  to  a  political 
speaker,  and  in  this,  his  first  joint  debate,  he  won 
not  only  the  applause  of  the  audience  in  the  field, 
but  the  praise  of  his  opponent  as  well. 

While  knocking  about  in  this  way,  he  happened 
upon  a  man  who  engaged  him  at  fifty  cents  a  day 
to  go  on  a  flatboat  to  New  Orleans,  with  the  promise 
of  an  added  sum  of  money  if  the  venture  succeeded. 
He  paddled  the  Sangamon  in  a  canoe  to  the  point 
where  he  fitted  up  the  raft,  on  which  he  floated  down 
the  river  until,  unfortunately,  it  was  stranded  on 
a  dam  in  front  of  New  Salem.  All  the  village 
flocked    to   the   scene   of  the   excitement,  and   the 

32 


ON  THE   PRAIRIES   OF   ILLINOIS 

— — —^» — ■— — ^ — *— — "^ — —  "^^j     i 

wise  men  ashore  offered  their  noisy  advice  to  the 
crew. 

One  member  of  that  crew  moved  the  crowd  to 
laughter.  He  was  a  tall,  gaunt,  sad-faced  young 
man.  His  coat  was  ragged,  his  hat  was  battered; 
and  his  trousers  of  torn  and  patched  homespun, 
with  nearly  half  of  one  of  the  legs  missing,  com- 
pleted a  picture  that  was  forlorn  indeed.  He  neither 
looked  at  the  grinning  people  on  the  bank,  nor 
said  a  word  in  reply  to  their  gibes.  He  had  thought 
out  in  his  own  mind  a  way  to  get  over  the  dam. 
He  met  the  emergency  without  turning  to  any  one 
for  advice,  and  in  ^ue  time  the  boat  floated  onward 
and  from  view,  the  grotesque  figure  of  the  youthful 
Lincoln  standing  on  the  deck,  pole  in  hand. 

After  the  cargo  of  corn  and  hogs  had  been  landed 
and  sold  in  New  Orleans,  Lincoln  and  John  Hanks 
went  about  the  city  to  see  the  sights.  One  of  those 
sights  made  an  impression  on  Lincoln's  mind 
which  the  years  did  not  efface  and  to  which  in  after 
time  he  never  could  refer  without  emotion.  It  was 
a  slave  auction,  and,  as  he  came  to  it,  he  saw  a  young 
woman  standing  on  the  block,  while  the  auctioneer 
shouted  her  good  points.  He  saw  her  driven  around 
the  mart,  exhibited  and  examined  as  if  she  were 
a  horse,  in  that  circle  of  sordid  dealers  in  human 
flesh.    This  was  slavery  in  its  ugliest  aspect,  and 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Lincoln  was  stirred  to  the  depths  of  his  nature. 
"If  I  ever  get  a  chance  to  hit  this  thing,"  he  de- 
clared to  John  Hanks,  according  to  the  story  which 
the  latter  has  given  to  history,  "I'll  hit  it  hard." 

From  New  Orleans,  the  flatboatmen  returned 
by  steamer  to  St.  Louis.  Thence  Lincoln  walked 
across  Illinois  to  his  father's  farm.  After  visiting 
his  family  there,  he  went  on  his  way  until  he  came 
again  to  New  Salem,  where  his  boat  had  stuck  on 
the  dam.  His  employer  in  the  baating  enterprise 
had  decided  to  open  a  store  in  that  village  of  twenty 
log  houses  and  one  hundred  population,  and  Lincoln 
was  to  help  him.  He  walked  into  the  little  settle- 
ment to  find  that  the  merchant  and  his  merchandise 
had  not  yet  arrived.  Every  one  remembered  him 
as  the  silent,  strange,  and  ingenious  young  man 
who  had  freed  the  flatboat  from  its  obstruction, 
and  his  easy  good  nature  and  droll  remarks  won 
him  a  hearty  welcome  among  the  people,  who, 
a  few  months  before,  had  jeered  at  him  from  the 
river   bank. 

Another  distinction  awaited  him.  An  election 
was  to  be  held,  and  penmanship  not  being  a  com- 
mon accomplishment  in  New  Salem,  Linioln  was 
asked  if  he  could  write  a  good  hand.  He  answered 
he  "could  make  a  few  rabbit  tracks  on  paper," 
and  he  was  selected  to  help  the  clerk  of  the  eW^ion. 

34 


ON   THE   PRAIRIES    OF   ILLINOIS 

a  post  which  brought  him  in  touch  with  all  the 
voters  and  which  also  brought  him  a  small  but 
needed  sum  of  money.  The  stories  he  told  at  the 
polls  that  day  increased  the  popular  favor  in  which 
he  was  held,  and  half  a  hundred  years  later  old 
men,  with  smiling  satisfaction,  retold  them  to  a  new 
generation. 

At  last  the  new  store  was  opened.  The  ambition 
of  the  owner  was  not  content  with  this  one  venture, 
and  he  bought  the  mill  as  well.  Lincoln  was  placed 
in  charge  of  both  businesses,  for  his  employer  had 
unlimited  faith  in  him  and  his  all-round  ability. 
He  boasted  that  his  clerk  was  the  best  man  in  New 
Salem  and  could  beat  any  one,  fighting,  wrestling, 
or  running.  The  villagers  were  willing  to  admit, 
of  one  accord,  that  the  young  stranger  was  a  mighty 
clever  fellow,  but  the  sweeping  assertion  of  the 
merchant  led  to  more  or  less  argument,  and  was 
looked   upon   by  some   as   a  challenge. 

The  Clary's  Grove  boys,  a  "generous  parcel  of 
rowdies,"  who  "could  trench  a  pond,  dig  a  bog,  build 
a  house,"  who  "could  pray  and  fight,  make  a  village, 
or  create  a  state,"  were  open  doubters.  They 
even  risked  $10  in  a  bet  with  the  merchant  that 
their  chief  bully,  Jack  Armstrong,  was  a  better 
man  than  his  clerk.  Lincoln  held  back.  He  had 
no  desire  to  fight, 

35 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


The  merchant,  however,  was  very  much  in  earnest, 
and  so  were  the  Clary's  Grove  boys.  A  man  had 
to  win  their  favor,  and  failing  to  win  it,  New  Salem 
was  no  place  for  him.  The  big,  good-natured  new- 
comer finally  consented,  and  all  the  village  flocked 
to  the  battle-field.  Lincoln's  weight  is  given  as 
214  pounds  at  that  time,  but  the  long  reach  of  his 
muscular  arm  was  his  strongest  point,  and  he 
quickly  seized  Jack  Armstrong  by  the  throat  and 
beat  the  air  with  him,  to  the  admiration  of  the  crowd, 
including  the  Clary's  Grove  boys  and  even  Jack 
himself. 

The  verdict  of  the  battle  was  loyally  accepted 
by  all,  and  the  winner  became  the  sworn  friend 
then  and  thenceforth  of  every  man  for  miles  around. 
His  admirers  never  ceased  to  brag  about  the  things 
he  could  do,  and  one  of  their  favorite  pastimes  was 
to  arrange  feats  of  strength  for  him  to  perform. 
It  is  a  tradition  that  once  he  raised  a  barrel  of  whiskey 
from  the  ground  and  lifted  it  until,  standing  erect, 
he  could  drink  from  the  bung-hole,  refusing,  however, 
to  swallow  the  liquor,  for  he  always  set  before  the 
community  in  his  own  life  a  much-needed  example 
of  total  abstinence.  Another  legend  represents 
him  as  having  lifted,  by  means  of  ropes  and  straps 
fastened  about  his  hips,  a  box  cf  stones,  weighing 
nearly   1000  pounds. 

36 


Frcm  the  collection  of  H.  W.  Fay,  Esq.,  De  Kalb,  111. 

A  Yoke  which  is  treasured  as  an  Example  of 
Lincoln's  Craftsmanship 


ON  THE   PRAIRIES    OF   ILLINOIS 

His  neighbors  respected  him  for  his  strength  of 
character  as  well  as  for  his  strength  of  body.  If 
a  wagon  stalled  in  the  crooked,  muddy  lane, 
which  was  the  only  street  of  New  Salem,  he  was 
among  the  first  to  go  to  the  aid  of  the  driver.  If 
a  widow  were  in  need  of  firewood,  he  cut  it  for 
her.  He  watched  with  the  sick,  and  any  chance 
for  kindness,  from  splitting  a  log  to  rocking  a  cradle, 
found  his  hand  always  ready  to  serve.  If  he  made 
a  mistake  in  weight  or  change  across  his  counter, 
he  did  not  sleep  until  he  had  corrected  the  error> 
though  sometimes  he  tramped  miles  into  the  country 
in  order  to  find  the  customer  whom  he  had  innocently 
wronged.  All  relied  on  his  sincerity,  and  thus, 
while  hardly  more  than  a  boy,  he  came  to  be  hailed 
as  "Honest  Abe." 

He  was  not,  however,  a  successful  business  man. 
He  would  rather  lie  on  the  counter,  his  head  resting 
on  a  pile  of  calico,  and  study  a  grammar,  which  he 
had  walked  six  miles  to  borrow,  than  cultivate 
trade.  Sometimes  intending  purchasers  found  him 
not  in  the  store  at  all,  and  had  to  call  him  from 
the  wayside,  where  he  was  sprawling  on  the  grass, 
covering  a  wrapping-paper  with  problems  in  mathe- 
matics. While  a  sale  was  pending  or  in  a  lull  in 
social  conversation,  he  was  likely  to  pull  out  a  book 
and  lose  himself  in  the  pages  of  Tom  Paine,  Voltaire, 

37 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Rollin,  or  Gibbon,  rare  copies  of  whose  works  he 
had  come  upon  in  that  rude  hamlet  on  the  remote 
frontier. 

In  less  than  a  year  the  merchant  had  failed  and 
his  clerk  was  adrift  again,  free  to  ramble  about  the 
village,  the  life  of  its  groups  of  loiterers,  or  to  sit 
all  day  beside  the  eccentric  old  fisherman  on  the 
banks  of  the  Sangamon  and  listen  to  his  quotations 
from  the  poetry  of  Shakespeare  and  Burns;  or 
else,  silently  to  walk  the  street,  absorbed  in  a  book, 
speaking  to  no  one  and  seeing  no  one.  He  earned 
enough  by  an  occasional  job  to  keep  him,  for  he 
never   let   himself  become    dependent  on   others. 

There  was  a  moral  dignity  about  him  which  the 
villagers  felt  and  respected.  They  did  not  rate 
him  a  loafer,  but  they  did  feel  he  was  wasting  his 
hours.  Those  bustling  planners  and  builders  of 
New  Salem  could  not  know  that  this  dreamer  among 
them  was  planning  and  building  for  all  time,  while 
the  village  they  were  rearing  would  in  a  few  years 
be  but  a  cow  pasture  and  remembered  among  men 
only  because  fate  had  selected  it  as  a  station  in  the 
progress  of  Abraham   Lincoln:  — 

"  For  the  dreamer  lives  forever, 
And  the  toiler  dies  in  a  dayeM 


CHAPTER  VI 

WRESTLING    WITH    DESTINY 


Lincoln  already  marked  out  for  leadership.  —  Chosen  a  captain  in 
the  Black  Hawk  War,  an  honor  which  pleased  him  more  than 
any  other.  —  Saving  the  life  of  the  only  Indian  he  saw  in  the 
campaign  against  the  red  men  in  the  spring  of  1832.  —  Search- 
ing for  his  place  in  life.  —  Entering  politics.  —  Defeated  for 
the  Legislature  in  August,  1 832.  —  High  finance  in  New  Salem. 
—  Lincoln's  failure  as  a  trust  magnate.  —  A  heavy  burden  of 
debt.  —  His  first  sight  of  Blackstone.  —  Doing  chores  about 
the  village.  —  A  barefoot  law  student.  —  Appointed  post- 
master May  7,  1833,  he  carried  his  office  in  his  hat.  —  Sur- 
veyor. —  Crushed  by  a  creditor,  saved  by  a  friend.  —  His 
gratitude. 

Homeless  and  unemployed,  Lincoln  was  glad 
to  respond  to  the  Governor's  call  for  volunteers, 
when  Black  Hawk,  the  old  Indian  chief,  took  the 
war  path  in  Illinois.  The  scene  of  the  conflict  was 
far  removed  from  the  Sangamon,  but  the  chance 
for  a  campaign  aroused  the  spirit  of  adventure  in 
the  young  pioneers  about  New  Salem. 

When  the  company  from  that  neighborhood  met, 
many  of  the  soldiers  wished  Lincoln  to  be  their 
captain.  At  the  election,  he  and  the  one  other  can- 
didate for  the  post  took  up  positions  apart,  ancfr 
their  followers  rallied  around  them.  By  far  the 
larger  number  went  over  to  Lincoln's  side,  and  thu* 

39 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


he  was  chosen.  It  was  an  honor  which  he  said 
long  afterward  pleased  him  more  than  any  that 
had   come  to  him. 

He  really  cared  nothing  for  the  little  military 
glory  there  was  in  it,  and  he  never  wore  the  title 
of  captain  after  the  war  was  over.  That  those 
among  whom  he  had  come  only  a  year  before, 
without  friends  and  without  a  name,  had  singled 
him  out  for  leadership,  filled  him  with  satisfaction. 
Doubtless  it  caused  him  to  feel  that  his  secret  dreams 
of  a  higher  destiny  were  coming  true. 

He  knew  nothing  of  his  new  duties  and  took  little 
trouble  to  learn.  The  story  is  told  that  when  his  men 
came  to  a  narrow  gate,  he  could  only  shout  at  them, 
"This  company  will  break  ranks  for  two  minutes 
and  form  again  on  the  other  side  of  that  gate." 
A  more  experienced  commander  would  have  had 
his  troubles  in  reducing  that  band  of  rough  merry- 
makers to  martial  discipline,  and  Captain  Lincoln 
bore  with  entire  good  humor  the  various  forms  of 
disgrace  which  they  brought  upon  their  commanding 
officer. 

He  was  arrested  and  his  sword  taken  from  him 
for  one  day,  because  a  member  of  his  company 
fired  a  gun  within  the  limits  of  the  camp.  At  an- 
other time,  when  some  of  his  men  made  a  night  raid 
on  the  headquarters'  provisions,  *heir  captain  had 

40 


WRESTLING   WITH   DESTINY 

to  pay  for  their  frolic  by  wearing  a  wooden  sword 
two  days.  He  even  permitted  them  to  draw  him 
into  a  wrestling  match  with  a  champion  from  a  rival 
command,  and  they  had  the  humiliation  of  seeing 
their  captain  thrown.  When  his  company  was 
mustered  out  of  the  service  and  disbanded,  Lincoln, 
with  no  vanity  of  rank,  enlisted  as  a  private  in  a 
cavalry  troop. 

The  fortunes  of  war,  however,  did  not  bring  him 
within  sight  of  Black  Hawk  or  within  sound  of  battle. 
Indeed,  instead  of  slaying  Indians,  he  saved  the  life 
of  the  only  red  man  with  whom  he  came  in  contact. 
This  was  an  old  Indian,  who  bore  a  pass  as  a  trusted 
friend  of  the  whites.  He  was  set  upon  by  a  crowd 
of  soldiers,  who  pretended  to  think  his  pass  was 
a  forgery,  and  who  were  determined  to  shoot  him 
as  a  spy.  Lincoln  appealed  to  the  men  to  spare 
him,  and  finding  them  deaf  to  his  appeal,  quickly 
placed  his  own  body  between  the  Indian  and  the 
guns  of  his  enemies  and  thus  shielded  him  from 
harm. 

With  the  end  of  the  war,  Lincoln  returned  to  New 
Salem.  He  was,  as  he  afterward  said,  "without 
means  and  out  of  business,"  and  he  "had  nothing 
elsewhere  to  go  to."  An  election  was  about  to  be 
held  for  members  of  the  Legislature.  He  was  en- 
couraged to  become   a  candidate,  for  the  sake  of 

41 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


the  experience  and  advancement  the  place  would 
bring  him.  In  a  democracy  like  ours,  all  the  govern- 
ment, from  the  little  town  up  to  the  great  nation,  is 
but  a  school  for  the  instruction,  improvement,  and 
elevation  of  the  citizens.  The  Legislature  was  like 
a  university  for  Lincoln,  and  it  was  in  this  spirit 
that  he  sought  a  seat  in  it. 

His  announcement  of  his  candidacy  was  in  the 
nature  of  the  man.  After  frankly  stating  his  posi- 
tion on  the  questions  of  the  hour,  he  added,  "I  may 
be  wrong  in  regard  to  any  or  all  of  them;  but,  hold- 
ing it  a  sound  maxim  that  it  is  better  only  sometimes 
to  be  right  than  at  all  times  to  be  wrong,  so  soon 
as  I  discover  my  opinions  to  be  erroneous,  I  shall 
be  ready  to  renounce  them."  He  declared  his 
greatest  ambition  was  to  "be  truly  esteemed  of  my 
fellow-men,  by  rendering  myself  worthy  of  their 
esteem.  How  far,"  he  added,  "I  shall  succeed 
in  gratifying  this  ambition  is  yet  to  be  developed. 
I  am  young  and  unknown  to  many  of  you.  I  was 
born  and  have  ever  remained  in  the  most  humble 
walks  of  life,"  and  "if  the  good  people  in  their 
wisdom  shall  see  fit  to  keep  me  in  the  background, 
I  have  been  too  familiar  with  disappointments  tc 
be  very  much  chagrined. " 

His  campaign  was  short  and  only  one  of  his 
meetings  has  been  called  to  memory.     This  was  at 

42 


WRESTLING  WITH   DESTINY 

a  place  some  distance  from  New  Salem,  where  he 
waited  until  the  close  of  an  auction,  when  he  got 
up  and  attempted  to  speak  to  the  crowd.  The  peo- 
ple ignored  him,  for  they  seemed  bent  on  enjoying 
a  fight,  and  a  general  engagement  followed.  The 
candidate  was  forgotten.  He  quickly  gained  at- 
tention, however,  by  stepping  down  into  the  thick 
of  the  fray,  seizing  the  ringleader  and  throwing  him 
flat  on  the  ground.  Then  he  climbed  upon  the 
platform  again,  took  off  his  old  hat,  and  made  a 
speech  to  an  entirely  respectful  audience. 

He  was  a  candidate  before  the  voters  of  the  entire 
county,  and,  having  no  acquaintance  outside  his 
own  town,  he  was  defeated;  "the  only  time  I  have 
ever  been  beaten  by  the  people,"  he  was  able  to 
say  nearly  twenty  years  later.  The  vote  cast  in  the 
precinct  of  New  Salem,  however,  was  most  flatter- 
ing to  him,  for  he  received  277  ballots  there  among 
his  neighbors  in  the  village  and  the  surrounding 
country,  and  only  seven  were  thrown  against  him. 

He  turned  again  to  business,  and  with  a  partner 
he  bought  out  a  storekeeper.  Not  long  afterward 
the  Clary's  Grove  boys  celebrated  by  smashing  the 
windows  of  one  of  the  other  stores.  The  frightened 
proprietor  took  the  hint,  and  offered  to  sell  his  stock 
cheap.  Lincoln  and  his  partner  became  the  purchas* 
ers,  and  next  they  bought  the  only  remaining  store. 

43 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


By  this  combination,  or  trust,  they  gained  a  monop- 
oly of  the  trade  of  New  Salem,  and,  after  the  fashion 
of  high  finance  in  a  later  day,  they  had  done  it  all 
without  a  cent  of  cash.  In  each  case  they  gave 
their  notes,  their  promises  to  pay.  Credit  was  the 
life  of  business  on  the  frontier,  for  currency  seldom 
was  seen  there,  and  personal  notes  passed  from 
hand  to  hand  almost  as  readily  as  treasury  notes  in 
our  day. 

In  his  tanbrogans,  blue  yarn  socks,  broad-brimmed, 
low-crowned  straw  hat  without  a  band,  and  usually 
with  only  one  suspender  on  his  trousers,  Lincoln 
did  not  look  like  a  financial  magnate  or  a  merchant 
prince.  He  went  to  live  at  the  tavern,  a  log  structure 
of  four  rooms,  where  all  the  men  lodgers  slept  to- 
gether, and  where  he  delighted  to  meet  the  travelers, 
who  tarried  there  on  the  stage  route.  When  the 
place  was  crowded,  he  good-naturedly  relieved 
the  landlord  by  sleeping  on  a  counter  in  his  store. 

Storekeeping  again  failed  to  interest  Lincoln. 
He  continued  to  be  a  student  of  men  and  books. 
By  a  strange  chance  one  book  came  to  him,  which 
probably  fixed  his  course  in  life.  The  firm,  in  its 
readiness  for  a  trade,  bought  from  a  stranger  a  barrel 
of  odds  and  ends.  While  Lincoln  was  searching 
through  its  varied  contents  with  his  long  arm,  he 
fished  out  a  copy  of  Blackstone's  commentaries  on 

44 


WRESTLING  WITH   DESTINY 

a— — — — — — — —  —«——■— 

the  common  law.  He  was  fascinated  by  the  very 
sight  of  it,  and  day  after  day  pored  over  its  pages  as  he 
lay  on  the  ground  near  the  store,  his  feet  resting 
high  against  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  and  his  body  wrig- 
gling around  to  keep  in  the  shade.  Meanwhile  his 
partner  was  giving  most  of  his  attention  to  the  rear 
of  the  store  where  the  liquors  were  kept,  for  all 
country  stores  in  those  times  sold  liquor,  though 
in  this  one  there  was  no  bar. 

In  a  few  months  the  firm  was  dissolved  and  the 
store  was  sold,  the  purchaser,  of  course,  indorsing 
and  promising  to  pay  the  notes  of  Lincoln  and  his 
partner.  After  a  little  while,  however,  the  new 
man  fled,  Lincoln's  old  partner  died,  and  Lincoln 
alone  stood  responsible  for  the  total  indebtedness, 
an  obligation  so  heavy  that  he  always  spoke  of  it 
as  the  "national  debt."  He  had  shown  himself 
a  poor  business  man,  it  is  true,  but  he  bravely  faced 
his  responsibility.  He  did  not  run  away  from  it 
or  try  to  beg  off. 

"That  debt  was  the  greatest  obstacle  I  have  ever 
met  in  life,"  he  said  after  many  years.  He  owed 
$1100  and  he  had  no  way  to  get  money  except  by 
hard  labor  at  a  small  wage.  He  went  to  his  creditors 
and  told  them  if  they  would  wait,  he  would  give 
them  all  he  could  earn  above  the  cost  of  living  as 
fast  as  he  could  earn  it,  and  thus  work  out  the  last 

45 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


dollar.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  whole  life  was 
mortgaged  as  he  started  out  again,  with  only  his 
strong  right  arm  to  help  him  lift  the  burden  from 
his  shoulders.  One  week  he  would  split  rails, 
another  week  toil  in  the  fields,  while  from  time  to 
time  he  helped  out  in  the  store  and  did  chores  about 
the  tavern. 

Through  it  all  he  did  not  cease  to  read.  By 
walking  to  Springfield,  a  distance  of  twenty  miles, 
he  could  borrow  law  books,  and  people  long  re- 
membered the  picture  of  the  big  barefoot  student, 
intently  reading  as  he  came  and  went  along  the 
dusty  road.  Another  tale  oft  told,  is  of  an  old 
farmer  finding  his  hired  man  lying  in  the  field,  with 
a  book  in  his  hand. 

"What  are  you  reading?"  he  demanded. 

"I  ain't  reading;  I'm  studying,"  Lincoln  answered, 
without  losing  his  place  on  the  page. 

"Studying  what?" 

"Law,  sir." 

"  Great  —  God  —  Almighty,"  the  farmer  snorted, 
as  he  went  ofF,  shaking  his  wise  old  head. 

The  eager  student  would  not  stop  reading  even 
for  darkness.  The  cooper  gave  him  the  freedom 
of  his  shop,  and  there  he  would  go  of  an  evening, 
build  a  fire  of  shavings,  and  read  by  its  light.  As 
fast  as  he  learned  anything  about  the  law,  he  made 

46 


WRESTLING   WITH   DESTINY 

his  knowledge  useful  to  his  neighbors  by  drawing 
up  their  legal  papers  and  by  representing  them  in 
trials  before  the  justice  of  the  peace,  all  without 
charge. 

The  upward  turn  came  in  the  fortunes  of  Lincoln 
when  friends  obtained  for  him  the  postmastership 
of  New  Salem.  It  was  not  a  highly  paid  office, 
nor  was  there  much  to  do.  When  the  mails  came 
only  once  or  twice  a  week,  and  sometimes  in  the 
winter  only  once  a  month,  the  postmaster  was 
not  kept  very  busy.  At  best,  letters  were  not  many, 
for  the  cheapest  postage  then  was  six  cents  for 
thirty  miles  or  less;  from  that  figure  the  rate  rose 
as  high  as  twenty-five  cents  on  a  letter  going  to 
a  distant  state.  The  people  were  so  much  given 
to  doing  business  on  credit  that  they  would  not 
pay  cash  even  for  their  letters,  and  Lincoln  had  to 
carry  numerous   accounts   in   his   head. 

While  he  was  postmaster,  the  post-office  of  New 
Salem  was  in  his  hat.  Meeting  a  man  for  whom 
he  had  a  letter,  he  would  take  off  his  hat,  withdraw 
the  mail  from  it,  and  deliver  it  on  the  spot.  As  he 
went  about  his  day's  labor  in  the  country,  he  would 
distribute  the  mail  at  the  cabins  on  the  way. 

Next,  a  chance  to  do  surveying  came  to  him,  as 
it  had  come  to  Washington  in  his  youth,  and  he 
fitted  himself  for  the  duty  by  hard  study,  50  hard, 

47 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


indeed,  that  his  friends  were  alarmed  for  his  health. 
He  gained  repute  for  his  accuracy  in  his  new  work, 
and  this,  with  the  natural  fairness  of  his  mind,  won 
respect  for  the  young  surveyor's  decisions  regarding 
disputed  boundary  lines.  One  day,  when  he  was 
surveying  a  piece  of  land  over  which  there  was 
a  long-standing  quarrel,  he  put  his  stick  into  the 
ground  and  said,  "Here  is  the  corner."  A  man 
dug  in  the  earth,  and  the  by-standers  were  astonished 
to  see  him  uncover  the  buried  mark,  which  years 
before,  the  original  surveyors  of  the  national  gov- 
ernment had  placed  at  the  exact  spot  indicated  by 
Lincoln. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  had  a  right  to  feel 
at  ease.  He  was  making  a  living  and  at  the  same 
time  preparing  himself  for  the  future.  Then  once 
more,  the  shadow  of  misfortune  fell  across  his  path. 
A  stranger,  who  had  come  into  possession  of  one 
of  his  notes  given  in  purchase  of  a  store,  sued  him 
and  seized  his  horse,  saddle,  bridle  and  all,  and, 
worse  still,  his  surveying  instruments.  It  was  a 
dark  hour,  filled  with  humiliation.  A  friend,  how- 
ever, came  to  the  rescue  and  saved  him,  by  buy- 
ing in  the  property  and  handing  it  back  to  him. 

Lincoln  never  lacked  a  friend  and  never  forgot 
one.  A  man  in  New  Salem  who  had  trusted  him 
for   board   was   himself  homeless   in   his   old    age. 

48 


WRESTLING  WITH   DESTINY 

Lincoln,  with  his  gratitude  still  warm  after  many 
years,  went  to  the  distant  part  of  the  state,  where 
his  one-time  benefactor  was  an  inmate  of  a  poor- 
house,  took  him  from  the  place  and  found  a  good 
home  for  him.  The  friendships  he  made  along  the 
Sangamon,  amid  the  struggles  of  his  early  man- 
hood, when  he  had  neither  fortune  nor  fame,  stood 
the  tests  of  time  and  change  and  lasted  through 
life.     They  were  the  corner-stone  of  his  success. 


49 


CHAPTER  VII 


IN   THE    LEGISLATURE 


Elected  a  Representative  in  1834.  —  Borrowing  money  with  which 
to  clothe  himself  and  going  to  Vandalia,  then  the  capital  of 
Illinois.  —  First  meeting  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  —  Lincoln 
a  member  of  Henry  Clay's  Whig  party.  —  Favoring  woman's 
suffrage.  —  An  early  joint  debate.  —  Reelected  to  the  Legis- 
lature in  1836,  1838,  and  in  1840. — Whig  candidate  for  Speaker. 
—  Leader  of  his  party  in  the  House.  —  Fighting  for  removal  of 
the  capital  to  Springfield.  —  Wild  legislation.  —  Lincoln  tak- 
ing his  stand  against  slavery  in  the  session  of  1837,  only  one 
member  in  sympathy  with  him. 

Lincoln  was  no  longer  a  stranger,  when,  for  the 
second  time,  he  announced  himself  a  candidate 
for  the  Legislature.  He  now  made  a  general  can- 
vass, visiting  as  many  of  the  voters  as  he  could  in 
their  homes  and  in  their  fields,  eating  with  them  and 
laughing  with  them. 

Newspapers  then  were  few  and  little  read.  Candi- 
dates, therefore,  could  not  make  themselves  and  their 
opinions  known  to  the  voters  except  by  going  among 
them  in  person.  Lincoln  showed  himself  a  good 
campaigner,  always  ready  for  any  situation.  At  one 
farm  where  he  stopped,  it  was  harvest  time  and  the 
farmer  was  in  no  mood  to  talk  politics.  He  bluntly 
told  the  young  politician  he  judged  a  man  by  the 


IN   THE   LEGISLATURE 


work  he  could  do.  Lincoln  accepted  the  challenge 
good-naturedly,  and,  going  down  the  field,  he  cut  the 
grain  with  such  ease  that  he  led  all  the  other  work- 
ers. There  were  several  voters  among  the  harvest- 
ers, and  when  Lincoln  shook  their  hands  in  parting, 
he  was  assured  of  their  enthusiastic  support.  He 
was  elected  by  a  handsome  vote. 

Borrowing  the  money  with  which  to  buy  suitable 
clothing,  he  went  to  the  capital  at  the  opening  of 
the  session,  and  there  entered  upon  the  career  for 
which  he  had  long  been  fitting  himself  in  the  hard 
school  of  experience.  He  was  now  approaching  his 
twenty-sixth  birthday.  He  never  had  lived  in  a 
town,  but  always  in  log-houses  in  the  woods.  He 
never  had  lived  where  there  was  a  church.  He 
never  had  been  inside  a  college,  and  had  attended 
school  hardly  more  than  six  months  in  all.  He  wel- 
comed the  lour  dollars  a  day,  which  was  allowed 
members  of  the  Legislature,  as  by  far  the  highest 
pay  he  ever  had  received.  In  fact,  he  had  not  aver- 
aged four  dollars  a  week. 

His  fellow-members  were  frontier  solons,  pioneer 
farmers  and  village  lawyers,  for  there  were  no 
large  towns  in  Illinois.  Chicago  was  yet  a  mere 
trading  post  in  a  swamp.  There  were  a  few  French- 
men, representing  the  surviving  communities  of 
the  period  when  Illinois  was  under  the  lilies  of  the 


U.      F  ILL.  l.l 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Bourbons  and  the  tricolored  flag  of  revolutionary 
France;  the  rest  of  the  members  generally  were 
men  of  southern  origin  like  Lincoln. 

The  state  was  founded  and  ruled  by  Southerners. 
There  was  only  a  small  population  of  Northerners 
in  the  upper  half,  which  was  sparsely  settled,  and 
the  Yankee  was  an  object  of  popular  prejudice, 
since  he  was  regarded  as  a  thrifty  and  meddlesome 
person,  prone  to  insist  upon  ordei  and  his  own 
strict  standards  of  life. 

Lincoln  remained  in  modest  silence  through 
his  first  term  in  the  Legislature.  He  no  doubt 
regarded  himself  merely  as  a  pupil  and  was  content 
to  watch  and  listen.  He  cultivated  his  associates 
quietly  and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  future.  It 
was  then  and  there  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  entered 
the  story  of  Lincoln's  life. 

Douglas  was  a  Yankee  from  Vermont,  but  he 
was  acting  with  the  Democratic  party,  which  had 
long  dominated  Illinois.  Although  he  had  come 
to  the  state  only  a  year  before  with  thirty-seven 
cents  in  his  pocket,  he  had  picked  up  a  living  by 
teaching  school  and  practising  law,  and  was  now  at 
the  capital  to  gain  the  appointment  of  prosecuting 
attorney  in  his  district. 

While  Douglas  went  with  the  majority,  Lincoln 
made  the  harder  choice  and  joined  the  minority. 


IN   THE   LEGISLATURE 


Indeed,  his  party,  afterward  known  as  the  Whig, 
was  yet  without  even  a  name,  with  no  victories  to 
its  credit  and  no  honors  to  bestow.  It  was  out  of 
power  in  the  nation  and  in  the  state,  and  had  but 
few  followers  in  New  Salem.  Lincoln,  however, 
was  naturally  inclined  to  take  the  part  of  the  weak 
in  politics  as  well  as  in  the  everyday  relations  of 
life.  Moreover,  the  new  party  was  the  party  of 
Henry  Clay,  the  model  and  idol  of  the  young  states- 
man of  the  Sangamon. 

In  offering  himself  for  reelection,  Lincoln  an- 
nounced he  was  in  favor  of  "admitting  all  whites 
to  the  right  of  suffrage,  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms, 
by  no  means  excluding  females."  As  he  had  taken 
in  boyhood  a  stand  for  temperance  and  against  cru- 
elty to  animals  in  advance  of  any  general  agitation 
of  those  questions,  so  now  he  came  out  for  a  measure 
of  woman  suffrage  before  there  was  a  movement 
in  favor  of  it  anywhere.  He  had  no  thought  of 
making  an  issue  on  this  subject  at  that  early  day, 
b'ut  his  declaration  shows  that  he  was  thinking  and 
not  afraid  to  express  his  thoughts. 

His  contest  for  a  second  term  took  place  in  a 
presidential  year,  and  he  entered  into  a  number  of 
exciting  joint  debates.  In  one  of  those  debates, 
which  was  held  in  Springfield,  he  was  stirred  to  makf; 
a  spirited  personal  reply  to  an  opposing  speaker. 

53 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


This  man  was  accused  of  having  recently  re- 
ceived a  first-class  federal  office  as  a  reward  for 
changing  his  politics.  He  was  also  noted  for 
having  erected  on  his  house  the  only  lightning-rod 
in  the  town,  and  the  first  Lincoln  had  seen. 
Grouping  these  things  together,  Lincoln  con- 
cluded a  rousing  rejoinder  to  the  gentleman,  by 
declaring  he  would  rather  die  on  the  spot,  than, 
like  his  opponent,  "change  my  politics  for  an 
office  worth  three  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and 
then  feel  compelled  to  erect  a  lightning-rod  to 
protect  a  guilty  conscience  from  an  offended 
God." 

In  the  election  that  followed,  nine  members  were 
chosen  from  Sangamon  County,  and  Lincoln  led 
them  all  with  the  highest  vote.  He  took  a  prominent 
part  in  the  work  of  the  session  and  was  on  the  most 
important  committee.  The  young  state  dreamed 
of  the  greatness  awaiting  it  and  was  eager  to  hasten 
its  coming  by  all  manner  of  legislation  for  building 
roads   and   canals. 

Plans  were  adopted  with  a  hurrah,  which,  if 
carried  out,  would  have  bankrupted  the  state  for 
a  generation.  Lincoln  plunged  in  with  the  rest, 
all  of  whom,  with  the  recklessness  of  youth,  threw 
caution  to  the  winds.  He  made  it  his  more  special 
mission,  however,  to  have  the  capital  of  the  state 

54 


IN   THE   LEGISLATURE 


transferred  to  Springfield,  in  his  own  county,  and 
he  won  the  battle. 

Nevertheless,  in  all  the  transactions  of  that  am- 
bitious session,  only  one  incident  survives  in  human 
interest.  The  nation  had  been  disturbed  by  the 
rumblings  of  a  moral  protest  against  slavery.  The 
agitation  had  begun  in  New  England,  where  Faneuil 
Hall  echoed  with  the  appeal  for  freedom,  and  thence 
had  spread  abroad. 

Those  who  had  taken  it  up  were  pitifully  few  in 
number  and  without  political  standing,  but  their 
feeble  voice  startled  the  country  like  a  cry  in  the 
night.  The  South  demanded  that  these  assaults 
upon  the  peace  of  the  Union  should  be  suppressed, 
and  the  great  body  of  the  northern  people  were 
equally  opposed   to   the   movement. 

The  meetings  of  the  Abolitionists  were  broken 
up  in  various  parts  of  the  North  by  violence  under 
the  leadership  of  conservative  men  of  property. 
A  "broadcloth  mob"  dragged  William  Lloyd  Gar- 
rison through  the  streets  of  Boston  with  a  halter 
round  his  body,  and  the  Mayor  of  that  city,  apologiz- 
ing to  the  Mayor  of  Baltimore,  explained  that  when 
the  police  had  ferreted  out  Garrison  and  his  paper, 
The  Liberator,  they  found  his  office  to  be  "  an  obscure 
hole;  his  only  visible  auxiliary  a  negro  boy;  his 
supporters  a  few  insignificant  persons  of  all  colors." 

55 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


In  New  Hampshire  and  in  Connecticut  an  in- 
dignant population  raided  private  schools  which 
received  negro  pupils.  A  mass  meeting  in  Cin- 
cinnati demanded  that  the  publication  of  an  anti- 
slavery  paper  in  that  city  should  be  stopped,  and  its 
press  was  thrown  into  the  Ohio  River.  The  meet- 
ing place  of  the  despised  agitators  in  Philadelphia 
was  burned,  and,  within  the  year,  the  editor  of  an 
Abolition  paper  in  Alton,  Illinois,  was  murdered. 
Congress  and  the  legislatures  of  several  states  united 
in  denouncing  all  discussion  of  the  sensitive  subject. 
The  Legislature  of  Illinois  joined  in  this  denuncia- 
tion of  the  agitators  by  a  resolution  of  both  houses. 

In  all  the  work  of  that  session  Lincoln  had  gone 
with  the  tide,  but  now  he  boldly  took  his  stand  apart. 
He  wrote  a  protest  and  called  upon  the  members 
to  sign  it.  In  this  short  and  simple  document, 
he  admitted  that  the  Abolition  movement  tended 
rather  to  increase  than  abate  the  evils  of  slavery, 
and  that  Congress  had  no  power  to  abolish  the 
system  in  the  states;  but  he  did  urge  his  associates 
to  place  on  record  the  declaration  that  "they  believe 
that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on  both 
injustice  and  bad  policy.,, 

This  language,  in  the  light  of  a  later  day,  is  mild 
to  the  degree  of  timidity,  but  when  it  was  written, 
twenty-four  years  or  almost  a  quarter  of  a  century 

56 


IN   THE   LEGISLATURE 


before  the  Civil  War,  slavery  never  had  been  ar- 
raigned as  an  injustice  in  any  party  platform  or 
by  any  party  leader.  In  all  the  Legislature,  Lincoln 
found  only  one  man  who  would  sign  his  moderate 
little  paper.  Dan  Stone,  a  colleague  from  Sangamon, 
was  willing  to  write  his  name  upon  it,  and  under 
it  appears  the  signature,  "A.  Lincoln." 

It  was  the  still,  small  voice  of  conscience.  The 
first  test  had  come,  and  Lincoln  had  bravely  chosen 
his  part.  Although  he  served  four  terms  in  the 
Legislature  and  became  the  Whig  candidate  for 
Speaker  and  the  chosen  leader  of  his  party  on  the 
floor  of  the  House,  aside  from  this  one  act,  big  with 
prophecy,  history  has  rescued  from  oblivion  nothing 
4se  i*.  his  service  which  foreshadowed  his  future. 


57 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LOVER   AND    LAWYER 


The  tragic  story  of  Lincoln's  first  love.  —  His  wooing  of  Ann  Rut- 
ledge,  the  tavern-keeper's  daughter  at  New  Salem.  — The  con- 
flict between  her  conscience  and  her  heart.  —  Lincoln  plunged 
in  gloom  by  her  death,  August,  1835.  —  Friends  feared 
he  would  lose  his  mind. — A  primitive  man  always  in 
his  sentiments.  —  His  removal  to  Springfield  in  1837  to  begin 
the  practice  of  law  with  John  T.  Stuart.  —  Too  poor  to  pro- 
vide a  bed  for  himself.  —  At  once  the  center  of  a  group  of 
brilliant  and  ambitious  young  men,  destined  to  win  fame.  — ■ 
Characteristic  instance  of  his  integrity.  —  Paying  a  claim  made 
by  the  government.  —  Still  working  out  his  debt. 

The  story  of  Lincoln  as  a  lover  forms  a  melan- 
choly chapter.  No  other  experience  of  his  early 
years  gave  him  so  much  anguish,  no  other  trial  so 
tested  and  tempered  his  nature.  If  it  did  not  bring 
him  happiness,  neither  did  it  embitter  him.  On 
the  contrary,  he  came  forth  from  that  period  of 
soul-wracking  doubt  and  despondency,  a  master 
of  his  passions,  with  a  patience  and  a  fortitude 
which  fitted  him  to  endure  disappointment  and 
suffering. 

If  Lincoln  had  a  sweetheart  in  his  boyhood, 
a   prying  world    has    been    unable   to    discover   the 

S3 


LOVER   AND   LAWYER 


tender  episode.  In  his  youth  he  was  charmed  by 
books  rather  than  woman's  looks,  and  no  legends 
have  come  down  of  the  gallantry  of  the  Hoosier 
wood-chopper,  sighing  and  wooing  on  the  banks  of 
Little  Pigeon  Creek.  It  is  the  accepted  belief 
that  he  escaped  a  lover's  pangs  until  he  was  a 
young  man  of  twenty-five  or  twenty-six,  when  the 
auburn-haired  daughter  of  the  tavern-keeper  of 
New  Salem  smote  his  heart. 

This  was  Ann  Rutledge,  a  Kentucky  girl  by 
birth,  a  South  Carolinian  by  descent.  She  was  at- 
tractive both  in  mind  and  in  person,  refined  in  man- 
ner, and  strong  in  character.  If  it  was  love  at  first 
sight,  Lincoln's  fortunes  were  so  low  that  he  did 
not  venture  openly  to  aspire  to  her  hand  in  the  begin- 
ning of  their  acquaintance,  when  sometimes  he  was 
only  a  penniless  helper  about  her  father's  tavern. 

Moreover,  she  was  engaged  to  another.  It  was 
not  until  after  this  man  had  disappeared  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  village  and  Lincoln  had  risen  to 
the  surveyorship  and  a  seat  in  the  Legislature,  that 
he  told  her  of  his  love.  It  is  a  tradition  that  he  first 
opened  his  heart  to  her  at  a  "quilting,"  to  which 
he  escorted  her,  and  as  a  proof  that  her  own  heart 
responded,  there  was  preserved  for  years  the  very 
quilt  over  which  her  agitated  fingers  flew  —  and  the 
uneven  stitches   told   the   story. 

59 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


The  girl,  however,  felt  bound  in  loyalty  to  the 
absent  one.  She  asked  Lincoln  to  wait  until  she 
could  gain  her  release  from  that  obligation.  Her 
letter  was  sped  on  the  way  to  its  distant  destination, 
and  they  could  only  watch  for  the  slow  coming  of 
the  answer.  They  waited  through  the  months, 
and  no  reply  came.  At  last  she  promised  herself 
to  Lincoln,  who  was  compelled  to  postpone  their 
marriage  indefinitely,  because  he  could  not  yet 
support  a  wife. 

In  the  midst  of  almost  the  first  happiness  which 
he  had  ever  known,  his  sweetheart  fell  sick.  Her 
faithful  nature  had  been  unable  to  free  itself  from 
the  shadow  of  the  man  who  had  gone  away  with 
her  pledge  to  remain  true  till  he  came  again.  The 
villagers  said  her  heart  was  breaking  for  him. 
More  likely,  however,  it  was  her  conscience  rather 
than  her  heart  that  was  troubled. 

Her  sickness  ran  into  a  fever,  and  she  was  for- 
bidden to  receive  callers.  She  disclosed  her  love 
for  Lincoln  by  begging  earnestly  and  constantly 
to  be  permitted  to  see  him.  She  could  not  live,  and 
her  family  let  her  have  her  only  wish.  The  last 
song  she  sang  was  for  him.  After  a  few  days  the 
end  came  and  Lincoln  was  borne  down  with  woe. 

The  love  of  Ann  Rutledge  had  been  like  a  beautiful 
flower  in  the  hard  and  thorny  pathway  of  his  lonely 

60 


LOVER   AND   LAWYER 


life.  To  see  this  flower  fade  and  die  ere  it  bloomed, 
filled  him  with  the  darkest  despair.  In  his  senti- 
ments and  emotions,  Lincoln  remained  always  a 
primitive  man,  a  simple  backwoodsman.  No  eleva- 
tion of  mind  or  station  seemed  to  affect  these  elements 
of  his  nature.  His  heart  was  unchanged  to  the  end. 
He  never  rose  superior  to  its  aches  and  appeals; 
he  could  always  cry. 

Malaria  attacked  the  settlers  in  the  dank  forests 
and  the  tillers  of  the  newly  turned  soil  of  the  virgin 
land  of  the  West.  Lincoln  did  not  escape  the 
disease  and  this,  together  with  his  intellectual  isola- 
tion and  his  naturally  sensitive  disposition,  made 
him  a  man  of  dark  moods.  These  he  could 
sometimes  disguise  or  momentarily  beguile  with 
jests  and  laughter,  but,  in  his  sluggish  physical 
condition,  he  seemed  powerless  to  conquer  them 
and  throw  them  off. 

He  grieved  for  the  dead  girl  until  his  friends 
feared  he  was  losing  his  mind.  Returning  to 
the  Legislature  he  summoned  the  spirit  for  carry- 
ing on  his  work  there,  but  he  sadly  confessed  to 
a  fellow-member,  "Although  I  seem  to  others  to  en- 
joy life  rapturously,  yet  when  alone  I  am  so  over- 
come by  mental  depression,  I  never  dare  to  carry 
a  pocket-knife." 

In   this    somber   frame   of  mind,    Lincoln   bade 

61 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


good-by  to  New  Salem.  It,  too,  was  dying.  The 
post-office  had  "winked  out,"  as  its  quaint  post- 
master expressed  it,  and  the  trade  of  the  place 
had  been  diverted  to  a  near-by  town.  When,  with 
everything  he  owned  in  his  saddle-bags,  he  mounted 
a  borrowed  horse  and  rode  away  to  be  a  lawyer  in 
Springfield,  he  was  even  poorer  than  when  he  first 
walked  into  New  Salem,  for  now  he  was  deep  in  debt. 

He  was  in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  and  the  lawyer, 
from  whom  he  had  been  borrowing  law  books, 
offered  to  take  him  into  his  office.  Although 
Springfield  was  a  little  town  of  between  one  and 
two  thousand  population,  it  had  been  made  the  new 
capital  of  the  state,  largely  through  Lincoln's  efforts 
in  the  Legislature.  The  townspeople  naturally  felt 
grateful  toward  him,  and  the  field  was  a  promising 
one. 

Arrived  at  Springfield,  he  ordered  a  bedstead  of 
the  cabinet-maker  and  then  went  to  a  general  store 
to  see  how  much  the  bedding  would  cost.  The 
price  was  seventeen  dollars.  He  sighed  and  his 
face  took  on  an  added  shade  of  gloom. 

"I  have  not  the  money  to  pay,"  he  confessed, 
"but  if  you  will  credit  me  until  Christmas,  and  my 
experience  here  as  a  lawyer  is  a  success,  I  will  pay 
you  then.  If  I  fail  in  that,  I  will  probably  never 
pay  you  at  all." 

6a 


LOVER   AND   LAWYER 


While  the  storekeeper  had  no  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  him,  he  had  heard  him  speak  and  he 
admired  him.  His  sympathy  was  aroused  by  his 
air  of  hopeless  poverty  and  he  told  him,  if  he 
would  accept  it,  he  would  share  his  bed  with  him* 

"Where  is  your  room?"  Lincoln  inquired. 

"Upstairs,"  the  proprietor  answered. 

The  forlorn-looking  newcomer  took  his  saddle- 
bags on  his  arm  and  went  up  the  stairway.  Coming 
down  in  a  few  minutes,  his  face  was  in  a  broad  smile, 
as  he  said,  "Well,  Fm  moved." 

There  in  the  room  above  the  store  of  his  generous 
host,  he  lodged,  while  struggling  to  get  a  foothold 
in  his  new  profession.  For  years  his  debts  hung 
over  him  like  a  black  cloud.  He  felt  in  honor  bound 
to  share  every  hard-earned  dollar  with  his  creditors. 
Long  after  the  stores  for  which  he  contracted  the 
debt  had  been  razed  to  the  ground  and  New  Salem 
itself  had  utterly  vanished  from  the  earth,  he  was 
still  paying  for  them  out  of  his  scanty  earnings  at 
the  bar. 

Friends  who  knew  through  what  stress  he  had 
passed  and  still  was  passing,  gained  a  glimpse  of  the 
integrity  of  the  man  one  day  when  an  agent  of  the 
Post-office  Department  appeared  in  Springfield. 
This  official  came  to  collect  a  balance  of  seventeen 
dollars  due  the   government   from    Lincoln   at  the 

63 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


time  he  had  retired  from  the  postmastership  of 
New  Salem.  Lincoln  stepped  over  to  an  old  box 
in  his  office  and  drew  forth  a  sock  containing  the 
exact  amount  in  silver  and  copper  coins.  There  it 
had  reposed,  untouched  by  him,  through  every 
temptation  of  years  of  pinching  need,  while  he 
waited  for  the  government  to  give  him  a  chance 
to  settle.  Those  who  saw  the  proceeding  were 
amazed,  but  he  simply  remarked  that  he  had  made 
it  his  practice  not  to  spend  money  belonging  to 
others. 

Had  Lincoln  been  able  to  choose  for  himself, 
he  could  not  have  found  more  fortunate  head- 
quarters in  Springfield  than  the  store  over  which 
he  slept.  In  front  of  the  big  wood  fire  there,  the 
rising  young  men  of  the  town  were  in  the  habit  of 
gathering  in  the  evening,  and,  with  his  humor  and 
his  earnestness,  he  soon  became  the  center  of  the 
company,  which  included  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who 
was  admitted  to  practice  before  the  State  Supreme 
Court  the  same  day  that  Lincoln's  name  was  en- 
rolled; O.  H.  Browning,  afterward  a  member  of 
a  President's  Cabinet,  E.  D.  Baker,  later  a 
Senator  from  Oregon,  and  others  destined  to  fame. 

It  was  an  ambitious  group,  and  Baker  is  said  to 
have  burst  into  tears  while  reading  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  finding  rhat  he,  a  native 

64 


LOVER   AND    LAWYER 


of  England,  could  never  be  President.  The  questions 
of  the  hour  were  warmly  debated,  and  every  cause 
found  a  champion.  Once,  when  the  arguments 
became  unusually  heated,  Douglas  sprang  up  and 
challenged  his  opponents  to  a  public  debate,  which 
came  off,  four  on  a  side,  and  raged  for  more  than  a 
week.  Lincoln  was  the  last  speaker,  and  the  world 
hardly  would  recognize  the  Lincoln  it  knows  in  the 
bombast  which  he  delivered  on  that  occasion. 
"Many  free  countries  have  lost  their  liberties,  and 
ours  may  lose  hers,"  he  declared,  "but  if  she  shall, 
let  it  be  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the 
last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted  her." 

It  was  in  a  time  when  the  mock  heroic  was  the 
favorite  tone  of  our  public  speaking.  Lincoln,  like 
the  rest  in  that  period,  had  nothing  to  talk  about, 
and  he  split  the  ear  with  wordy  declamation.  In 
a  day  of  ordinary  things  he  could  be  as  ordinary 
as  any  one.  Only  when  his  heart  was  touched  by 
a  lofty  cause  was  he  lifted  above  the  commonplace. 

When  the  roaring  log-cabin  and  hard-cider  cam- 
paign of  1840  spread  over  the  country,  a  period  of 
all  shouting  and  no  thinking,  he  was  in  the  thick 
of  the  idle  fray.  The  bitter  personal  controversies 
of  that  year,  in  which  he  was  involved,  sufficed  him 
for  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  was  a  part  of  his  edu- 
cation.    Thenceforth,  aside    from    an    absurd    duel 

65 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


two  years  afterward,  he  practised  a  self-control  and 
a  courtesy  which  held  him  aloof  from  all  personal 
wrangling.  He  fought  measures  and  not  men,  and 
relied  upon  the  arguments  of  the  mind  rather  than 
those  of  the  fists. 

The  Washingtonian  temperance  movement  which 
swept  over  the  land  reawakened  Lincoln's  early 
interest  in  the  subject.  The  moral  and  humane 
aspects  of  the  crusade  stirred  him  and  inspired  him 
to  deliver  a  powerful  address,  in  which  he  foretold 
the  time  "when  there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor 
a  drunkard  on  the  earth." 

If  there  was  a  moral  principle  beneath  any  question 
presented  to  him,  his  nature  was  certain  to  respond 
to  it.  This  was  shown  again  when  Knownothingism 
raised  its  head,  and,  by  secret  methods,  attempted 
to  place  foreign-born  residents  under  the  ban  and 
to  discriminate  against  men  on  account  of  their  re- 
ligious belief.  As  the  movement  gained  in  strength, 
timid  politicians  were  thrown  into  a  panic.  Lincoln, 
on  the  other  hand,  struck  at  the  thing  boldly,  and 
at  the  very  outset  of  the  agitation  he  offered  a  resolu- 
tion in  convention  declaring  that  the  right  of  con- 
science "belongs  no  less  to  the  Catholic  than  to  the 
Protestant."  No  form  of  intolerance  or  proscription 
had  a  place  in  the  make-up  of  the  man. 


66 


CHAPTER  IX 


MARRIAGE    AND    POLITICS 


Lincoln's  lack  of  the  social  graces.  —  His  strange  courtship  of 
Mary  Todd. — Their  sharp  differences  in  temperament  and 
breeding.  —  His  long  wrestle  with  doubt.  —  A  period  of  almost 
suicidal  despair.  —  Miss  Todd  innocently  involved  him  in  an 
absurd  duel  with  General  Shields,  September,  1842,  which 
became  the  means  of  reuniting  them.  —  Their  abrupt  marriage, 
November  4,  1842. — The  ambitious  bride's  faith  in  her 
husband's  future.  —  Lincoln  elected  to  Congress  in   1846. 

The  graces  of  a  lady's  man  were  denied  Lincoln. 
"Mr.  Lincoln  was  deficient  in  those  little  links 
which  make  up  the  chain  of  a  woman's  happiness 
— at  least  it  was  so  in  my  case."  This  is  the  verdict, 
and  doubtless  a  fair  verdict,  of  one  who  rejected  him 
as  a  suitor.  She  rightfully  complained  that  when 
they  were  riding  and  came  to  a  stream,  he  never 
thought  of  seeing  that  her  horse  got  safely  over  the 
ford,  but  galloped  on,  trusting  her  <o  look  out  for 
herself. 

He  never  had  any  parlor  small  talk  He  retained 
through  life  an  indifference  to  social  formalities. 
He  seemed  not  to  defy  them,  but  never  fc  >  understand 
them.     In  Springfield    he    could   not  wholly  avoid 

67 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


the  society  of  the  place,  because  of  the  rank  which 
he  took  at  the  bar  and  in  politics.  From  the  first 
his  associations  were  with  persons  who  pretended  to 
some  breeding  in  the  young  and  ambitious  capital* 
where,  as  he  wrote,  there  was  "  a  good  deal  of  flourish- 
ing about  in  carriages. "  When  he  felt  called  upon 
to  attend  a  ball,  he  danced  little,  and  was  rather 
given  to  annoying  the  women  by  diverting  their 
partners  to  a  corner  of  the  room,  where  he  generally 
held  forth  to  a  masculine  group. 

In  the  same  year  he  went  to  Springfield,  Mary 
Todd  came  from  Kentucky  to  visit  her  eldest  sister, 
who  had  married  into  a  notable  family  of  Illinois. 
After  a  stay  of  a  few  months,  she  returned  to  her 
native  state,  but  came  again  two  years  later  to  make 
her  sister's  home  her  own,  in  preference  to  her  father's 
house,  over  which  a  step-mother  presided.  She  was 
a  spirited,  impulsive,  outspoken,  pretty  little  woman 
of  twenty-one,  used  to  refined  society  and  as  well 
educated  as  a  woman  could  be  in  those  days. 

Her  sister's  spacious  dwelling  was  the  social  center 
of  the  town,  and  Miss  Todd  never  was  without 
attentions  and  admirers.  In  an  open  competition 
among  them,  Lincoln,  poor  and  awkward,  would 
have  been  easily  distanced,  for  in  her  train  were 
graceful  courtiers  like  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Not- 
withstanding her  pride  of  family,  for  she  was  de- 

68 


MARRIAGE   AND   POLITICS 


scended  from  governors  and  generals,  her  interest 
was  enlisted  in  the  character  of  the  former  wood- 
chopper,  and  the  bright  promise  of  future  distinction 
which  he  wore  excited  her  ambition. 

Her  family  did  not  look  kindly  upon  her  prefer- 
ence for  him,  and  the  halting  and  doubting  suitor 
himself  would  have  discouraged  a  less  resolute 
woman.  She  and  Lincoln  were  not  only  opposites  in 
breeding  but  in  temperament  as  well,  and  the  course 
of  their  love  never  ran  smoothly.  Whether  in  his 
conflicting  emotions  and  morbid  presentiments  of 
unhappiness  he  failed  her  on  the  appointed  wedding 
day,  history  is  not  certain.  There  is  no  question, 
however,  that  he  brought  his  relations  with  her  to 
an  abrupt  end,  and  plunged  into  a  period  of  des- 
perate melancholy. 

Friends  watched  him  and  cared  for  him  with 
anxious  solicitude.  He  wrote  to  his  partner,  then 
in  Congress,  that  he  was  the  most  miserable  man 
living,  and  that  if  his  misery  were  distributed  among 
the  human  family,  there  would  not  be  one  cheerful 
face  on  earth.  He  could  not  tell  if  he  would  ever 
recover;  "I  awfully  forebode  I  shall  not."  In  his 
groping  for  help,  he  wrote  a  noted  Cincinnati  doctor, 
describing  his  condition,  his  early  love  for  Ann  Rut- 
ledge  and  his  more  recent  experience,  and  asking 
him  to  prescribe. 

69 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


After  months  of  this  unhappy  mood  a  good  friend, 
who  was  going  to  Kentucky  co  see  his  betrothed, 
took  Lincoln  with  him.  There  the  heart-sick 
patient  gained  some  relief  amid  new  scenes  and 
faces,  and  most  of  all  in  striving  to  cure  his  friend, 
who  was  strangely  stricken  with  the  same  torment- 
ing doubts  in  his  own  love  affair.  When  he  had 
seen  this  case  end  in  a  happy  marriage  and  he  had 
returned  to  Illinois,  he  wrote  to  the  bridegroom 
with  glowing  satisfaction:  "I  always  was  super- 
stitious. I  believe  God  made  me  one  of  the  instru- 
ments of  bringing  you  and  Fanny  together,  which 
union  I  have  no  doubt  He  had  foreordained.  What- 
ever He  designs,  He  will  do  for  me  yet." 

Ever  present  in  his  mind  was  the  sad  plight  in 
which  he  had  placed  Miss  Todd.  It  was  a  wound 
in  his  honor.  He  reproached  himself  for  even 
wishing  to  be  happy  when  he  thought  of  her  whom 
he  had  made  unhappy.  "That,"  he  wrote,  "still 
kills  my  soul."  When  he  heard,  after  a  year,  that 
she  had  taken  a  short  journey  and  had  said  she 
enjoyed  it,  he  exclaimed,  "God  be  praised  for  that." 

Finally,  this  strange  love  story  of  Lincoln  and 
Mary  Todd  was  threatened  with  the  blood  stain 
of  a  tragedy,  which,  fortunately,  turned  out  to  be 
a  roaring  farce.  For  political  purposes  he  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  Springfield  paper,  pretending  to  come 

70 


MARRIAGE   AND   POLITICS 


from  a  widow,  in  which  he  ridiculed  the  auditor 
of  Illinois,  James  Shields,  destined  to  be  a  Senator 
of  the  United  States  and  a  general  in  the  Union 
army.  The  letter  was  followed,  the  next  week, 
by  an  imitation  over  the  same  signature,  but  with 
which  Lincoln  had  nothing  to  do. 

This  second  communication  made  all  kinds  of 
fun  of  Shields,  who  was  stung  to  demand  the  name 
of  the  writer.  The  editor  of  the  paper  came  to 
Lincoln  and  told  him  that  the  offending  article  had 
been  written  in  a  spirit  of  pure  mischief  by  Miss 
Todd  and  another  young  woman,  afterward  the 
wife  of  Lyman  Trumbull,  a  distinguished  Senator 
from  Illinois  in  the  period  of  the  Civil  War.  To 
protect  the  true  authors,  Lincoln  promptly  told  the 
editor  to  give  his  name  to  Shields,  and  a  most 
ridiculous  duel  was  the  result. 

He  was  heartily  ashamed  of  this  encounter  be- 
fore he  went  into  it  and  never  ceased  to  be  ashamed 
of  it.  Being  the  challenged  man,  he  chose  as  weapons 
the  largest  cavalry  broadswords,  and  the  party  went 
forth  to  the  field  of  honor,  where  Lincoln  grimly 
ran  his  finger  along  the  edge  of  his  ugly  duelling 
instrument,  and,  reaching  out  his  long  arm,  cut 
off  a  twig  from  a  tree,  far  above  his  head.  Brought 
face  to  face,  the  principals  quickly  came  to  a  peace- 
able understanding,  but  the  spirit  of  fight  was  caught 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


up  by  the  seconds,  and  challenges  flew  back  and 
forth  for  several  days,  all  as  bloodless  in  the  out* 
come  as  the  Lincoln-Shields  duel. 

In  the  next  scene,  Cupid  entered  the  fray  and 
Lincoln  surrendered  to  his  fate  and  Mary  Todd, 
His  impulses  were  as  weak  and  wayward  as  ever, 
but  his  sense  of  duty,  his  ideal  of  honor,  were  asserting 
themselves  over  his  doubts  and  fears.  He  must, 
however,  hasten  to  consult  once  more  the  friend  who 
had  borne  him  away  to  Kentucky  and  who  had 
now  been  married  eight  months.  "I  want  to  ask 
you  a  close  question,"  he  wrote  to  him.  "Are 
you,  in  feeling  as  well  as  in  judgment,  glad  you 
are  married  ?" 

Whatever  the  answer  may  have  been  to  this  most 
unusual  inquiry,  Lincoln  and  Mary  Todd  called 
the  latter's  sister  to  where  they  were  sitting  one 
Friday  morning,  and  told  her  they  had  decided  to 
be  married  in  the  evening.  No  time  was  allowed 
for  the  arrangement  of  a  feast  or  for  the  play  of 
gossip.  The  bride  must  even  borrow  a  wedding 
gown  from  a  sister  who  had  lately  married. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  loyally  accepted  and  shared  the 
simple  lot  of  her  struggling  husband.  They  went 
to  live  at  a  tavern  at  "four  dollars  a  week,"  and  it 
was  enough  for  the  aspiring  wife  to  dream  of  fortune 
and  fame,  and  to  know,  as  she  said,  "that  his  heart 

72 


MARRIAGE  AND   POLITICS 


is  as  large  as  his  arms  are  long."  It  is  a  pleasant 
legend  that  the  bride  boasted  she  would  make  her 
ungainly  groom  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

He  was  steadily  advancing  at  the  bar  and  was 
already  looked  upon  as  a  leader  in  politics.  After 
retiring  from  the  Legislature,  he  refused  to  consider 
the  empty  honor  of  the  Whig  nomination  for  Gov- 
ernor, Illinois  being  strongly  Democratic.  His  one 
political  ambition  was  to  sit  in  Congress.  He  was 
perfectly  frank  about  it.  "If  you  should  hear  any 
one  say  that  Lincoln  don't  want  to  go  to  Congress," 
he  wrote,  "  I  wish  you,  as  a  personal  friend  of  mine, 
would  tell  him  you  have  reason  to  believe  he  is 
mistaken.  The  truth  is,  I  would  like  to  go  very 
much." 

His  brilliant  friend,  E.  D.  Baker,  however,  got 
ahead  of  him,  and  Lincoln  cheerfully  awaited  his 
turn  to  receive  Congressional  honors.  He  only 
mildly  complained  that  the  influence  of  the  churches 
should  have  been  exerted  as  one  of  the  means  of 
preventing  his  nomination,  an  opposition  which 
was  raised,  he  said,  "because  I  belonged  to  no 
church  and  was  suspected  of  being  a  deist." 

Another  issue  of  that  canvass  only  amused  him. 
"I,  a  strange,  friendless,  uneducated,  penniless  boy," 
he  said  in  explaining  his  defeat  in  a  letter  to  a  man 
who  had  known  him  in  New  Salem,  "have  been 

73 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


put  down  here  as  the  candidate  of  pride,  wealth, 
and  aristocratic  family  connections."  This  referred, 
of  course,  to  the  family  into  which  he  had  married, 
but  to  a  group  of  friends  Lincoln  laughingly 
protested,  "I  do  not  remember  of  but  one  of  my 
relatives  who  ever  came  to  see  me,  and  while  he  was 
in  town   he  was  accused  of  stealing    a  jews-harp." 

When,  at  last,  his  time  came,  Lincoln  put  forth 
every  effort  to  succeed  Baker  in  Congress.  He 
wrote  to  several  active  men  in  each  precinct  and 
saw  that  the  local  paper  did  not  neglect  him.  He 
was  a  shrewd  and  close  campaigner,  missing  no 
points  in  the  fight  and  keeping  a  sharp  eye  on  all 
the  details  of  the  contest. 

In  the  election  he  carried  his  own  county  by  the 
largest  majority  ever  given  to  a  Whig  candidate 
up  to  that  time,  and  won  the  district  by  a  liberal 
margin.  Then,  as  the  first  flush  of  victory  passed 
away,  he  sadly  admitted,  "It  has  not  pleased  me 
as  much  as  I  expected/* 


74 


CHAPTER  X 


IN    CONGRESS 


Lincoln,  taking  his  seat,  December,  1847,  entered  a  Congress 
notable  for  distinguished  members.  —  As  the  only  Whig  from 
Illinois,  he  was  singled  out  and  welcomed  by  the  leaders.  — 
His  delight  in  the  great  library  at  the  Capitol.  —  President 
Polk's  Mexican  War  policy  challenged  by  the  new  member, 
although  his  course  cost  him  his  popularity  at  home.  —  The 
House  roaring  with  laughter  over  his  stump  speech  on  the  floor 
in  the  campaign  of  1848.  —  Speaking  in  Massachusetts  in  the 
summer  of  that  year.  —  Affected  by  the  Free-soil  movement  in 
that  state.  —  His  unsuccessful  effort  in  1849  to  abolish  slavery 
and  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  —  Seeking  an 
appointment  under  President  Taylor  in  1849  an^  ms  fortunate 
failure. 

Lincoln  was  thirty-eight  when  he  took  his  seat 
in  Congress  and  entered  upon  another  grade  in  the 
university  of  life. 

The  time  was  well  chosen  for  him.  The  eloquence 
of  Webster  still  contended  with  the  philosophy 
of  Calhoun  for  the  mastery  of  a  Senate,  in  which 
sat  many  other  noted  men,  among  them,  Benton 
and  Cass,  Tom  Corwin,  Sam  Houston  in  his  Navajo 
blanket,  Jefferson  Davis  and  Simon  Cameron, 
Hannibal  Hamlin,  and  John  A.  Dix.     Stephen  A. 

75 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Douglas  received  his  promotion  to  the  upper  cham- 
ber the  day  Lincoln  entered  the  lower. 

Robert  C.  Winthrop  was  the  Speaker  of  the  House, 
and  under  him  sat  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Robert 
Toombs,  Collamer  of  Vermont,  and  Andrew  Johnson. 
Horace  Greeley  was  added  to  the  membership  by 
a  special  election.  Above  all,  the  name  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  still  illuminated  the  roster  of  the 
House,  and  it  was  while  Lincoln  was  a  member 
that  the  "old  man  eloquent"  fell,  mortally  stricken 
at  his  post  of  duty  in  the  hall  of  representatives,  worn 
out  by  a  life  of  service  to  the  republic. 

The  new  Congressman  from  Illinois  was  totally 
unknown  to  his  fellow-members.  As  the  only  Whig 
from  his  state,  however,  he  received  a  special  wel- 
come from  his  party  associates,  and  this,  with  his 
natural  gift  for  winning  men,  soon  marked  him 
out  from  the  crowd.  He  attracted  the  favor  of 
Daniel  Webster  and  was  a  guest  at  several  of  the 
great  expounder's  Saturday  breakfasts.  He  needed 
only  to  tell  his  first  story  in  the  lounging  room  at 
the  Capitol  to  gain  attention  there,  and  within  a 
few  weeks  he  was  the  recognized  champion  of  the 
story-tellers  of  Congress. 

The  Congressional  Library  and  the  Library  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  with  their  great  stores  of  books, 
were  like  a  gold  mine  in  his  eyes.     More  than  once 

76 


IN   CONGRESS 


the  attendants  were  amused  to  see  him  tie  up  a  lot 
of  books  in  his  bandanna  handkerchief,  stick  his 
cane  through  the  knot,  and  go  forth  to  his  boarding 
house  with  the  bundle  over  his  shoulder,  just  as  in 
other  days  he  had  carried  his  wardrobe  while  tramp- 
ing from  job  to  job. 

James  K.  Polk  was  President  and  the  Mexican 
War  in  progress.  Many  people  believed  it  was 
an  unjust  war  and  brought  on  for  the  purpose  of 
gaining  more  territory  for  slavery  and  adding  more 
slave  states  to  the  Union.  The  President  insisted 
that  the  war  was  forced  upon  the  United  States 
by  Mexico,  that  she  had  invaded  our  territory  and 
shed  the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our  soil.  His 
opponents  denied  this.  They  contended  that  the 
President  had  sent  American  soldiers  beyond  the 
established  boundaries  of  the  country,  and  that  the 
Mexican  troops  had  only  tried  to  repel  them  from 
what  Mexico  rightfully  regarded  as   her  own  soil. 

Without  waiting  to  follow  the  lead  of  older  mem- 
bers, Lincoln  drew  up  and  presented  a  series  of 
resolutions  before  his  first  month  in  Congress  was 
at  an  end.  These  are  known  to  history  as  the 
"spot  resolutions,"  in  which  the  question  is  sharply 
pressed  upon  President  Polk  as  to  whether  the 
spot  to  which  he  had  sent  American  soldiers  and 
where  the  first   blood    of  the    war   was   shed  was 

77 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


within    the    established   boundaries   of  the    United 
States. 

After  a  few  weeks  he  addressed  the  House  in 
support  of  his  resolutions,  delivering  a  sober  argu- 
ment in  behalf  of  them  and  giving  a  searching 
review  of  the  case.  He  called  upon  the  President 
to  answer  the  questions  candidly,  reminding  him 
that  he  sat  where  Washington  sat  and  ought  to 
answer  as  Washington  would  answer.  If  the  ques- 
tions should  be  evaded,  the  country  must  accept  the 
evasion  as  a  confession  that  the  war  was  wrong  and 
that  the  President  hoped  to  conceal  the  wrong  be- 
neath military  glory — "that  attractive  rainbow  that 
rises  in  showers  of  blood,  that  serpent's  eye  that 
charms  to  destroy,"  and  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that 
Polk  was  "  a  bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably 
perplexed  man." 

This  speech,  made  when  the  country  was  ringing 
with  cheers  for  the  victory  of  American  arms,  brought 
upon  Lincoln's  head  the  censure  of  many  of  his 
friends  and  constituents,  to  one  of  whom,  a  clergy- 
man, he  wrote,  asking  if  the  precept  "whatsoever  ye 
would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so 
to  them"  is  "obsolete,  of  no  force,  of  no  application." 
Much  as  he  opposed  the  sending  of  an  army  into 
Mexico,  all  the  appropriations  for  supporting  the- 
soldiers  in  the  field  received  his  vote,  and  to  capture 

78 


IN   CONGRESS 


for  his  party  the  military  hero  of  the  hour,  he  aided 
in  forming  a  Taylor  Club  in  Congress. 

He  attended  the  National  Convention  at  Phila- 
delphia which  nominated  General  Taylor  for  Presi- 
dent. To  the  same  end,  he  delivered  on  the  floor, 
in  the  midst  of  the  campaign,  a  rousing  stump  speech, 
which  set  the  House  in  an  uproar  of  laughter  and 
applause.  A  press  correspondent  pictured  him  as 
he  worked  his  way  down  the  aisle,  talking  and  ges- 
ticulating, until  he  reached  the  clerk's  desk,  only  to 
retreat  to  his  starting  point  and  then  march  down 
again. 

As  the  campaign  advanced,  there  was  a  call  for 
him  from  Massachusetts,  where  the  Whigs  were 
troubled  by  the  rise  of  the  Free  Soil  party,  standing 
for  the  policy  of  keeping  the  soil  of  all  the  territories 
of  the  United  States  free  from  slavery.  It  was 
a  novel  experience  for  him  to  speak  to  audiences 
in  the  staid  and  settled  East,  and  to  see  and  hear 
this  "capital  specimen  of  a  Sucker  Whig,"  as  one 
of  the  Massachusetts  papers  described  him,  was 
a  noveky  to  the  New  Englanders. 

A  lively  demand  for  his  services  sprang  up  in  the 
Old  Bay  State,  and  his  stay  there  was  crowded  with 
engagements.  Instead  of  the  orator  in  a  swallow- 
tail, to  which  the  people  were  used,  they  saw  a 
prairie  giant  in  a  black  alpaca  coat,  who,  in  begin* 

79 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ning,  would  roll  up  his  sleeves,  then  roll  back  his 
cuffs,  next  loosen  his  tie,  and  finally  pull  it  off  in  the 
melting  heat  of  the  weather  and  of  his  fervid  oratory. 

In  Boston  he  spoke  with  William  H.  Seward  of 
New  York,  and  at  the  hotel,  after  the  meeting,  he 
remarked:  "Governor  Seward,  I  have  been  think- 
ing about  what  you  said  in  your  speech.  I  reckon 
you  are  right.  We  have  got  to  deal  with  this  slavery 
question  and  got  to  give  much  more  attention  to  it 
hereafter/' 

For  the  first  time  he  found  himself  in  a  community 
where  there  was  an  active,  organized  sentiment  on 
that  question  and  he  felt  the  influence  of  his  surround- 
ings. His  party  had  nominated  Taylor,  a  southern 
slaveholder,  and  was  ignoring  all  the  problems  con- 
nected with  slavery.  Lincoln,  however,  face  to  face 
with  the  Free  Soilers  in  Massachusetts,  plainly  saw 
that  the  politicians  could  not  dodge  the  subject 
much  longer  and  that  the  great  conflict  must  come. 

He  was  not  a  candidate  for  reelection  to  Congress, 
because  it  was  the  custom  in  his  district  to  give 
a  member  only  one  term,  and  besides  his  opposition 
to  the  Mexican  War  had  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  win  at  the  polls.  Returning  to  Washington 
the  following  winter,  he  distinguished  the  closing 
year  of  his  service  by  introducing  a  well-thought- 
out  measure  against  slavery. 

80 


IN   CONGRESS 


There  was  a  slave  mart  in  sight  of  the  Capitol, 
"a  sort  of  negro  livery  stable/'  Lincoln  said,  "where 
droves  of  negroes  were  collected  and  temporarily 
kept,  and  finally  taken  to  southern  markets,  precisely 
like  droves  of  horses.,,  To  remove  this  spectacle, 
he  offered  a  bill  abolishing  the  slave  trade  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  for  the  gradual  abolition 
of  slavery  there,  with  compensation  for  the  slave- 
holders. 

For  this  bill  he  labored  earnestly  and  at  one  time 
succeeded  in  bringing  together  the  opponents  of 
slavery  and  the  then  Mayor  of  Washington  in  sup- 
port of  it.  Afterward,  however,  southern  sentiment 
was  aroused  against  it,  the  Mayor  withdrew  his 
indorsement,  and  Lincoln's  bill  was  laid  on  the  table, 
where  it  slumbered  until  it  was  awakened,  a  dozen 
years  later,  by  the  clash  of  arms  in  the  Civil  War. 

As  the  inauguration  of  President  Taylor  drew 
near,  the  only  Whig  representative  from  Illinois 
had  a  busy  time.  He  was  on  the  committee  in 
charge  of  the  inaugural  ball,  at  which  he  lost  his  hat 
and  was  obliged  to  walk  home  bareheaded.  The 
office-seekers  under  the  new  administration  pressed 
hard  for  his  influence.  He  acted  in  this  matter 
with  dignity  and  fairness. 

In  the  end,  he  sought  for  himself  the  appoint- 
ment as  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office, 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Fortunately,  he  was  too  late;  the  place  had  been 
promised  to  another  and  he  was  spared  a  political 
burial  in  a  Washington  bureau.  He  was  deeply 
disappointed  for  a  time,  and  was  tempted  to  console 
himself  with  a  lesser  office  out  in  the  territory  of 
Oregon,  but  Mrs.  Lincoln's  objections  overruled  him. 
He  returned  to  his  dingy  little  law  office  in  Spring- 
field with  reluctance,  gave  up  politics,  and  went  to 
work  at  his  profession.  "I  have  always  been  a 
fatalist,"  he  said  afterward.  "What  is  to  be,  will 
be,  or  rather,  I  have  found  all  my  life,  as  Hamlet 
says, 

"'There's  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  end^ 
Rough  hew  them  how  we  will.'  " 


CHAPTER  XI 

LIFE    ON   THE    CIRCUIT 


Failing  as  an  office  seeker,  Lincoln  returned  to  his  dingy  little 
law  office  in  Springfield  in  1849.  —  Declined  a  lucrative  city 
practice  in  Chicago.  —  His  indifference  to  money  making.  — 
Censured  for  his  small  charges.  —  His  yearly  income.  —  His 
largest  fee.  —  Discouraging  unnecessary  lawsuits  and  re- 
jecting cases  that  were  wrong.  —  Championing  the  cause  of 
the  poor  without  pay.  —  A  pen  picture  of  the  man  as  he  rode 
the  country  circuit.  —  Some  of  his  noted  cases  in  the  higher 
courts.  —  His  bitter  rebuff  at  the  hands  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
in  an  important  case  at  Cincinnati  in  1857. 

Fortune  never  served  Lincoln  better  than  when, 
at  the  end  of  his  two  years  in  Congress,  she  led  his 
steps  up  the  old  stairway  to  the  bare  and  dingy  law 
office  of  Lincoln  and  Herndon  in  the  back  room  of  a 
two-story  brick  building  on  the  Square  in  Springfield. 

It  was  not  a  spacious  office,  nor  even  a  clean  one, 
for  in  a  neglected  corner  of  it,  where  packages  of 
government  seeds  were  tossed,  the  seeds  found 
enough  earth  in  which  to  take  root  and  sprout.  Here, 
however,  Lincoln  was  his  own  master,  free  to  think 
his  own  thoughts  and  to  speak  them.  He  would 
have  been  far  more  cramped  in  the  lofty  and  exten- 
sive quarters  of  the  Commissioner  of  the  General 

83 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Land  Office  at  Washington  than  within  these  narrow 
and  dusty  walls. 

Amid  admiring  friends  and  familiar  surroundings, 
he  soon  forgot  his  desires  and  disappointments  as 
an  office-seeker,  for  his  ambition  really  did  not  lie 
in  that  direction.  A  flattering  offer  of  a  partner- 
ship with  a  prosperous  Chicago  lawyer  did  not 
tempt  him  in  the  least,  and  he  declined  it  on  the 
ground  that,  having  a  tendency  to  consumption, 
confinement  in  a  city  office  might  kill  him. 

In  prompting  him  to  this  decision,  fortune  again 
favored  him.  A  Chicago  practice  might  not  have 
proved  fatal  to  his  health,  but  the  big  clients  and 
the  big  fees  of  a  city  well  might  have  interfered  with 
his  mental  and  moral  growth.  As  it  was,  he  lived 
and  died  without  a  trace  of  avarice.  No  lawyer  of 
his  ability  ever  cared  less  for  money.  To  him 
wealth  was,  as  he  once  said,  "simply  a  superfluity 
of  things  we  don't  need." 

No  man  in  his  position  could  have  fewer  needs. 
His  tastes  remained  to  the  end  as  simple  as  they 
were  in  the  beginning.  While  other  members  of 
the  bar  grew  rich  by  accumulating  land,  he  would 
not  turn  his  hand  over  to  make  a  dollar  in  specu* 
lation  and  was  content  to  stay  a  poor  man.  Most 
of  the  able  lawyers  around  him  made  more  money 
in  representing  absent  landlords  and  money  lenders 

84 


LIFE   ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


than  they  earned  at  the  bar.  Not  liking  that  line 
of  work,  however,  he  refused  to  trouble  himself 
with  it,  even  in  his  early  days  when  clients  were 
few.  Once  in  declining  such  a  chance,  he  wrote, 
recommending  another  man,  "whom,"  as  he  said, 
"the  Lord  made  on  purpose  for  just  that  kind  of 
business." 

He  was  a  poor  money  maker  in  his  profession 
itself.  Daniel  Webster,  who  sent  him  a  case,  was 
amazed  at  the  smallness  of  his  bill,  and  his  fellow- 
lawyers  generally  looked  upon  his  charges  as  scan- 
dalously low.  This,  indeed,  seemed  to  be  his  only 
fault  in  their  eyes.  In  one  instance,  where  another 
attorney  had  collected  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
for  their  joint  services  in  a  case,  he  refused  to  accept 
his  share  until  the  fee  had  been  reduced  to  what 
he  considered  a  fair  sum  and  the  overcharge  had  been 
returned  to  the  client.  When  David  Davis,  the 
presiding  judge  of  the  circuit,  who  himself  became 
a  millionaire  landowner,  heard  of  this,  he  indignantly 
exclaimed,  "Lincoln,  your  picayune  charges  will 
impoverish  the  bar." 

Lincoln's  practice,  at  best,  probably  brought  him 
an  income  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  dollars 
a  year.  The  largest  fee  he  ever  charged  was  in  an 
important  tax  case  for  the  Illinois  Central  Railway 
Company.     After   he   had   won   the   suit,    he    pre 

»5 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


sented,  in  person,  his  bill  for  two  thousand  dollars, 
and  an  official  of  the  corporation  regarded  it  as  so 
extortionate  that  he  refused  to  pay  it.  It  was  a  new 
experience  for  Lincoln  to  have  any  question  raised 
as  to  the  fairness  of  his  charges.  When  he  con- 
ferred with  his  friends  at  the  bar,  however,  they 
agreed  that  his  bill  was  ridiculously  small.  At  their 
urgent  suggestion  he  sued  for  five  thousand  dollars 
and  the  court  compelled  the  company  to  pay  it. 

It  was  a  common  thing  for  Lincoln  to  discour- 
age unnecessary  lawsuits,  and  consequently  he  was 
continually  sacrificing  opportunities  to  make  money. 
One  man  who  asked  him  to  bring  suit  for  two 
dollars  and  a  half  against  a  debtor  who  had  not 
a  cent  with  which  to  pay,  would  not  be  put  off  in 
his  passion  for  revenge.  His  counsel,  therefore, 
gravely  demanded  ten  dollars  as  a  retainer.  Half 
of  this  he  gave  to  the  poor  defendant,  who  thereupon 
confessed  judgment  and  paid  the  two  dollars  and 
a  half.  Thus  the  suit  was  ended  to  the  entire  sat- 
isfaction of  the  wrothy  creditor. 

Lincoln  was  equally  ready  to  take  up  a  just  case 
without  hope  of  pay  as  he  was  to  refuse  an  unjust 
one  at  the  loss  of  a  good  fee.  He  dragged  into  court 
a  pension  agent  who  insisted  on  keeping  for  himself 
half  of  a  four-hundred-dollar  claim,  which  he  had 
collected  from  the  government  for  the   aged  widow 

86 


LIFE    ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


of  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution.  There,  in  his  own 
expressive  phrase,  he  "skinned"  him,  moved  the 
jury  to  tears  by  his  stirring  appeal  for  justice  to  the 
old  woman,  and  won  the  verdict,  all  without  charge 
for  his  services. 

Naturally  he  shrank  from  confinement  in  a 
Chicago  law  office,  for  the  free  and  roving  life  of 
the  country  circuit  was  his  joy.  He  never  seemed 
to  tire  of  this  gypsy  existence.  In  the  new  West, 
a  lawyer  could  not  make  a  living  from  his  practice 
in  one  county  alone.  A  circuit  included  a  group 
of  counties,  and  the  circuit  judge  went  from  county 
to  county  holding  court,  while  the  members  of  the 
bar  followed  him  on  his  rounds. 

Lincoln's  circuit  embraced  more  than  a  dozen 
counties  and  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  broad. 
At  first  there  were  no  roads  worthy  of  the  name,  and 
no  bridges  at  all.  The  judge,  riding  horseback, 
led  a  cavalcade  of  mounted  attorneys,  while  others, 
who  could  not  afford  a  mount,  trudged  afoot.  After 
Lincoln's  return  from  Congress  he  journeyed  in  a 
rattletrap  buggy,  which  a  blacksmith  had  rudely 
put  together. 

He  delighted  in  roaming  the  prairies  and  was 
ready  for  every  adventure.  Whenever  and  wher- 
ever the  party  stopped  at  a  tarm-house  for  dinner, 
he  was  the  favorite,  with  his  stories  and  jokes.     Witb 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


his  long  legs  and  his  unfailing  helpfulness,  he  would 
get  out,  at  an  uncertain  ford,  take  off  his  boots, 
roll  up  his  trousers,  and  tread  the  stream  to  test  its 
depth  for  the  benefit  of  the  rest  of  the  company. 

Even  the  dumb  brute  in  distress  did  not  appeal 
to  him  in  vain.  A  squealing  pig,  "mired  down" 
in  a  bog,  drew  him  to  its  rescue,  and  two  little  birds, 
blown  by  the  wind  from  their  nest  in  a  grove  through 
which  he  was  passing,  called  him  back  with  their 
plaintive  chirping.  "I  couldn't  have  slept,"  he 
protested  to  his  smiling  companions  when  he  had 
overtaken  them,  "if  I  had  not  restored  them  to  their 
mother." 

At  once  the  best-known  and  the  best-liked  man  on 
the  circuit,  an  enthusiastic  welcome  awaited  him  on 
his  arrival  at  a  county  seat.  Bench  and  bar,  sur- 
rounded by  scores  and  hundreds  of  delighted  citizens, 
gwe  him  a  hearty  greeting  as  he  alighted  before 
Jie  tavern  and  grasped  with  genuine  pleasure  their 
outstretched  hands,  exclaiming  in  friendly  recogni- 
tion of  each,  "Hello,  Smith,"  "Hello,  Jones,"  "Ain't 
you  glad  I've  come?" 

On  his  head  he  wore  either  a  twenty-five-cent,  low- 
crowned  palm  hat  or  a  high,  shaggy  beaver  of  the 
William  Henry  Harrison  period.  Often  his  clothes 
were  of  wrinkled,  dusty,  rusty,  shiny  bombazine,  while 
sometimes,  for  lack  of  buttons,  his  suspenders  were 

88 


LIFE    ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


fastened  to  his  trousers  by  a  plug  or  a  stick,  which 
he  had  whittled  for  the  purpose.  In  his  hand  he 
carried  a  queer  old  carpet-sack,  and  under  his  arm 
a  worn  and  faded  green  cotton  umbrella,  tied  around 
the  middle  with  a  coarse  cord.  Inside  of  it  "A. 
Lincoln"  was  inscribed  in  letters  of  big  white  thread, 
and  from  its  handle  the  knob  had  been  missing  as 
long  as  any  one  could  remember. 

Careless  as  he  was  in  his  dress,  his  face  was  always 
carefully  shaven  and  his  person  scrupulously  clean. 
Free  as  he  was  in  meeting  people,  and  easy  as  the 
poorest  and  plainest  men  were  in  his  presence,  he  in- 
vited no  cheap  familiarity.  No  one  thought  of  slap- 
ping him  on  the  back  or  of  addressing  him  as  "Abe" ; 
he  was  "Mr.  Lincoln"  among  acquaintances  and 
simply  "Lincoln"  among  even  the  oldest  and  closest 
friends. 

Tavern  keepers  cordially  hailed  his  coming, 
because  his  presence  under  their  roof  made  their 
hostelry  the  center  of  the  community  for  the  time 
being,  while  he  never  was  known  to  complain  of 
the  food  or  service. 

If  he  appeared  in  the  lounging  room  of  the  inn 
at  night  and  tilted  back  in  a  chair,  the  news  spread 
abroad  and  the  place  quickly  filled  to  the  doors 
and  windows  with  a  crowd  eager  to  follow  the  play 
of   his   humor,   while   Judge   Davis   and   his   select 

89 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


coterie  of  the  more  reserved  members  of  the  bar 
impatiently  waited  for  him  to  come  to  the  judge's 
room  upstairs  and  enliven  their  discussions. 

For  some  time  after  he  came  back  from  Washing- 
ton he  was  in  a  studious  mood.  With  his  admission 
to  the  bar  and  his  opportunity  to  mingle  with  its 
interesting  members,  he  ceased  to  care  for  books. 
He  was  reading  men  and  studying  life.  When, 
however,  with  his  keen  eye  and  candid  mind,  he 
brought  himself  into  comparison  with  the  carefully 
trained  lawyers  whom  he  met  at  the  capital  of  the 
nation,  he  felt  the  glaring  defects  in  his  own  edu- 
cation. He  returned  home  with  the  determination 
to  read. 

He  was  forty,  but  not  too  old  to  learn.  He  took 
up  Euclid  as  his  first  study,  and  he  persevered  until 
he  had  mastered  the  first  six  books  of  that  classic 
authority.  Night  after  night  on  the  circuit,  long 
after  the  judge  and  his  two  or  three  other  fellow- 
lodgers,  whose  room  he  shared,  were  snoring  in  their 
sleep,  Lincoln  lay  and  read,  with  a  candle  on  the 
chair  at  the  head  of  his  bed,  and  his  feet,  as  usual, 
hanging  over  the  footboard.  Again  he  was  as  likely 
to  disappear  from  the  tavern  and  steal  off  alone  to 
enjoy  himself  like  a  boy  at  some  simple  magic-lan- 
tern show  in  the  village,  or  at  a  performance 
of  an  obscure  theatrical  troupe. 

90 


LIFE    ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


In  court  he  himself  was  the  star  actor.  On  that 
stage  the  comedies  and  tragedies  of  real  life  were 
enacted.  The  court-house  was  the  only  intellectual 
center  on  the  frontier,  and  thither  the  toiling  dwellers 
in  the  prairie  solitudes  crowded,  hungry  for  the  men- 
tal excitement  which  the  combats  of  the  lawyers 
afforded.  The  proceedings  were  not  technical  or 
tedious.  Neighborhood  quarrels,  common  in  a  new 
country,  were  tried  out  and  decided  more  by  the 
broad  rules  of  common  sense  or  by  the  play  of  the 
emotions  than  by  the  refined  processes  of  the  law. 

In  this  arena,  Lincoln  easily  led.  With  his  many- 
sided  nature,  he  had  his  special  mood  and  manner 
for  each  case.  If  there  was  occasion  for  it,  his 
broad  humor  and  homely  illustration  caused  the 
court  room  to  ring  with  laughter.  If  his  love  of 
justice  and  hatred  of  wrong  were  aroused,  judge 
and  jury,  bar  and  spectators,  were  thrilled  by 
his  passionate  earnestness.  His  sorrowing  eye  and 
trembling  voice,  when  his  pity  was  touched,  melted 
to  compassion  all  within  their  range. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  a  cold  abstraction  of  the 
law  be  his  theme,  and  his  native  power  of  clear 
reasoning  stripped  it  of  all  confusing  technicali- 
ties until  the  main  principle  was  made  plain  enough 
for  the  simplest  understanding.  He  had  no  liking 
for   abstruse    speculations,    no    patience   with    legal 

91 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


hair-splitting.  He  did  not  care  to  win  his  cases  by 
tricks,  and  generally  refused  to  take  sharp  advantage 
of  the  mistakes  of  his  opponents.  If  he  had  any 
truth  on  his  side,  he  clung  to  that  alone,  indifferently 
yielding  everything  else. 

"Yes,"  he  would  say,  as  he  gave  up  these  minor 
points  to  the  other  side,  in  the  careless  speech  which 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  using  in  his  careless  mood, 
"I  reckon  that's  right,"  or  "I  hain't  going  to  insist 
on  that  point."  When,  however,  the  "real  nub" 
of  the  matter,  as  he  called  it,  was  reached,  the  oppos- 
ing lawyer  found  to  his  amazement  that  the  easy- 
going Lincoln  had  turned  to  steel  in  a  twinkling 
and  was  gripping  like  a  vise  the  one  vital  point. 

He  did  not  always  have  the  right  on  his  side; 
but  the  practice  of  few  able  and  busy  lawyers  could 
bear  as  well  as  his  has  borne  the  searching  examina- 
tion of  history.  When  he  went  to  court,  he  did  not 
eave  his  private  conscience  at  home,  and  he  seems 
to  have  been  as  careful  of  his  honor,  as  true  to  his 
ideals,  in  his  profession  as  in  his  public  life. 

As  a  rule  men  with  bad  cases  did  not  go  to 
him,  because  it  was  notorious  that  he  was  a  poor 
lawyer  in  a  poor  case.  "I  think,"  said  one  of  his 
fellow-attorneys,  "he  was  of  less  real  aid  in  trying 
a  thoroughly  bad  case  than  any  man  I  ever  associated 
with."     When  he  saw  the  weakness  of  his  side,  he 

92 


LIFE   ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


lost  courage.  Once  in  the  midst  of  a  trial  he  turned 
to  his  associate  counsel,  exclaiming,  "The  fellow  is 
guilty:  you  defend  him;  I  can't."  For  the  same 
reason  he  turned  over  another  case  to  his  junior, 
saying,  "The  jury  will  see  that  I  think  the  man  is 
guilty."  While  trying  a  civil  suit,  he  discovered  evi- 
dence that  his  client  was  attempting  a  fraud,  and  he 
fled  from  the  court-house  like  a  coward. 

Lincoln  really  stood  in  awe  of  the  truth.  If  it 
was  against  him,  his  courage  and  his  faith  utterly 
forsook  him.  When  Herndon,  his  young  partner, 
once  filed  for  the  firm  a  plea  that  did  not  rest  on 
known  facts,  Lincoln  gently  insisted  that  he  with- 
draw it.  "The  cursed  thing,"  he  said,  "may  come 
staring  us  in  the  face  long  after  this  suit  has  been 
forgotten."  He  did  not,  indeed,  urge  a  purely  moral 
reason  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  plea,  but  it  was  the 
reasoning  of  a  mind  so  wholly  moral  that  it  could 
not  believe  a  lie  ever  would  triumph.  His  repute  for 
honesty  and  fairness  swayed  juries  more  than  his 
spoken  words.  He  did  not  bully  a  witness,  but 
with  natural  kindliness  led  him  along  until  he  tola* 
the  facts  in  spite  of  himself. 

His  successes  at  the  bar  were  not  all  won  before 
rustic  juries.  He  tried  as  many  cases  before  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  in  the  last  ten  years  of 
his  practice  as  any  man  on  his  circuit.     When  he 

93 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


had  been  a  lawyer  only  four  years,  he  carried  the 
Supreme  bench  with  him  in  a  strong  argument 
against  the  validity  of  a  note,  which  had  been  given 
in  payment  for  a  negro  girl.  His  contention  was 
that  by  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  which  he  had  first 
read  in  his  Hoosier  log-cabin  in  the  borrowed  volume 
of  Indiana  statutes,  there  could  not  be  a  lawful 
Sale  of  a  human  being  in  any  part  of  the  original 
Northwest  Territory.  This  early  case  of  Lincoln's 
marked  a  precedent  which  was  afterward  cited  in 
nearly  a  score  of  cases. 

In  one  instance,  he  was  called  to  Chicago  to  try 
a  big  case  involving  the  title  to  a  valuable  tract  of 
land  on  the  Lake  front.  In  another  interesting 
and  important  case,  he  laid  down  the  rule  that 
people  had  as  much  right  to  cross  rivers  as  to  go 
up  and  down  them.  This  trial  arose  from  the 
building  of  the  first  bridge  over  the  Mississippi  and 
from  the  fight  which  the  boatmen  made  against 
it  as  an  obstruction  to  their  business. 

The  worst  disappointment  of  his  professional  ca- 
reer befell  him  when  he  went  to  Cincinnati  as  coun- 
sel in  a  reaper  patent  case.  The  opposing  counsel 
was  an  eminent  lawyer  from  the  East.  Lincoln 
welcomed  the  encounter  and  prepared  for  it  by 
diligent  study.  His  friends  on  the  circuit  were  con- 
fident he  would  gain  honor  in  this  higher  forum. 

94 


LIFE   ON   THE   CIRCUIT 


His  client,  however,  who  had  four  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  at  stake,  lost  heart  when  he  beheld 
the  brilliant  talent  arrayed  against  his  homely 
country  lawyer,  and  he  called  Edwin  M.  Stanton 
to  his  aid.  Stanton  carried  matters  with  a  high 
hand  and  ignored  Lincoln,  who,  through  an  open 
door  in  a  hotel,  heard  him  scornfully  exclaim; 
"Where  did  that  long-armed  creature  come  from 
and  what  can  he  expect  to  do  in  this  case  ?"  Agair 
he  pictured  him  as  "a  long,  lank  creature  from 
Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty  linen  duster  for  a  coat,  on 
the  back  of  which  the  perspiration  had  splotched 
wide  stains  that  resembled  a  map  of  the  continent." 

The  unknown  and  melancholy  stranger,  without 
friends  in  the  city,  saw  himself  shut  out  of  the  trial 
of  a  celebrated  case  in  which  he  had  hoped  to 
win  distinction.  He  was  deeply  humiliated,  but  he 
drew  a  lesson  from  his  bitter  experience  and  obser- 
vation in  Cincinnati.  He  frankly  recognized  that 
the  lawyers  there,  college-bred  men,  were  better 
trained  than  the  lawyers  on  the  old  circuit.  He  saw 
that  educated  attorneys  were  working  their  way 
steadily  toward  the  West.  "They  study  their  cases 
as  we  never  do,"  he  said.  "They  will  soon  be  in 
Illinois  and  I  am  going  home  to  study  law.  I  am 
as  good  as  any  of  them,  and  when  they  get  out  tc 
Illinois,  I  shall  be  ready  for  them." 

95 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


No  rebuff  could  crush  for  a  moment  the  self- 
reliant  spirit  of  the  man;  but  his  resolution  to  apply 
himself  more  closely  and  studiously  to  the  law  was  at 
once  overruled  by  events,  calling  him  to  still  higher 
and  heavier  duties,  for  which  his  whole  life  had  been 
fitting  him. 

Although  the  bar,  of  which  he  was  the  unchallenged 
leader,  could  not  boast  great  learning,  it  numbered 
many  able  men — men  like  himself,  who  knew  more 
of  practice  than  of  theory.  In  a  new  land,  without 
traditions,  they  had  been  thrown  upon  their  own 
resources.  Innocent  of  precedents  and  decisions, 
they  had  been  obliged  to  blaze  a  path  and  break 
the  soil  for  justice.  Their  task,  if  it  did  not  make 
them  finished  lawyers,  at  least  bred  a  company 
of  strong,  original  men,  who,  when  opportunity 
knocked  at  the  doors  of  their  village  law  offices, 
showed  they  were  equally  ready  to  lead  in  the 
council  of  the  nation  or  to  command  on  the  field 
of  battle. 


96 


CHAPTER  XII 

HOME    AND    NEIGHBORS 


The  two  Lincolns:  one  the  simple,  homely,  familiar  neighbor; 
the  other  the  solitary,  moody  idealist  and  prophet,  whom  no 
man  knew.  —  Without  kindred  around  him  and  without  con- 
fidants. —  His  home  life.  —  Mrs.  Lincoln's  social  trials  on 
his  account.  —  Etiquette  a  closed  book  to  him.  —  His  knightly 
devotion  and  tender  sympathy.  —  His  relations  with  his  boys. 
—  Not  a  reader.  —  Fond  of  sad  songs.  —  His  real  law  office 
in  his  hat.  —  His  orderly  mind  and  faithful  memory.  —  How 
he  divided  fees  with  his  partner.  —  His  famous  defence  of  Jack 
Armstrong's  son  in  a  murder  trial  in  May,  1858. 

Lincoln  went  through  the  world  alone. 

There  seem,  indeed,  to  have  been  two  Lincolns. 
The  friends  who  knew  him  best  saw  hardly  more 
than  the  plain,  simple,  practical  man,  who  milked 
his  cow,  bedded  his  horse,  and  went  to  market  with 
his  basket  on  his  arm,  giving  a  cheery  "howdy"  to 
every  one  he  met  on  the  way,  or  who  sat  on  a  box 
at  the  foot  of  his  office  stairs  and  told  stories  to  a 
group  of  street  loiterers. 

They  beheld  another  Lincoln,  from  time  to  time 
as  he  walked  the  street,  completely  wrapped  in 
solitude,  or  as  he  sat  brooding  in  his  office  by  the 
hour  and  far  into  the  night.  His  closest  associates 
have  confessed  they  seldom  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
H  97 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


inner  Lincoln,  the  poet,  the  dreamer,  the  idealist, 
the  prophet  who  pondered  within  the  outer  Lincoln 
and  guided  him  on  to  his  destiny. 

Whatever  the  sorrows  of  the  man,  whatever  his 
hopes,  he  told  them  to  no  one,  asked  no  one  to  share 
them.  Not  one  of  his  kindred  came  forth  from 
the  lowly  obscurity  in  which  he  was  born  to  keep 
him  company  on  the  high  road  to  fame.  Without 
a  mother,  a  brother,  or  a  sister,  he  knew  little  or  noth- 
ing of  his  race,  save  an  illiterate  father,  who  lived 
to  see  but  not  to  understand  the  promise  of  his  son's 
distinction. 

He  had  no  chums  in  boyhood,  and  in  manhood  no 
confidants.  He  and  his  wife  loyally  kept  their  mutual 
vows,  but  they  were  held  apart  somewhat  by  nature 
and  training.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  her  husband's 
most  generous  admirer  and  sincere  adviser,  watch- 
ing his  political  advancement  with  eager  pride,  for, 
like  a  woman  of  the  old  South,  she  was  an  ardent 
politician.  Her  delicate  nervous  system,  however, 
was  easily   unstrung  by  family  cares. 

Lincoln's  innocence  of  social  standards,  so  im- 
portant in  her  eyes,  jarred  upon  her  at  times.  She 
felt  competent  to  make  their  home  a  center,  be- 
fitting, as  she  felt,  the  honor  in  which  he  was 
held.  He  good-naturedly,  if  awkwardly,  endured 
the  ceremonials  of  the  little  capital  city,  going  with 

9» 


HOME   AND   NEIGHBORS 


her  to  the  "grand  fetes,"  which  she  flatteringly 
pictured  in  her  letters  to  Kentucky  friends.  More- 
over, they  gave  parties  of  their  own,  one  of  which 
she  could  boast  was  attended  by  three  hundred 
persons. 

Careful  as  Lincoln  was  of  the  feelings  of  others, 
he  offended,  without  knowing,  his  wife's  sense  of 
propriety,  for  etiquette  remained  always  a  closec 
book  to  him.  At  the  table  he  might  forget  there 
was  a  special  knife  for  the  butter,  or,  if  the  bell 
rang,  not  wait  for  the  busy  "hired  girl"  to  answer 
it,  but,  rising  from  his  favorite  position  on  the  floor, 
himself  go  in  his  slippers  and  shirt  sleeves  to  wel- 
come, perchance,  some  ladies  who  had  come  to 
make  a  fashionable  call. 

All  others  in  Springfield  could  more  readily  for- 
give their  distinguished  townsman  his  little  lapses 
of  this  kind  than  could  his  proud  and  sensitive  wife. 
Even  the  picture  of  her  unhappiness  easily  might 
be  overdrawn,  for  Lincoln's  lack  of  the  small  graces 
of  life  was  outweighed  many  times  by  his  knightly 
honor,  his  patient  devotion,  as  well  as  by  the  silent 
sympathy  with  which  he  bore  her  nerve  storms. 

He  delighted  to  carry  his  boys  on  his  back  and  tc 
take  one  of  them  by  the  hand  when  he  went  down 
town.  Their  turmoil  never  disturbed  him.  The  mis- 
chief-making of  youth  only  amused  him ;    he  never 

99 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


viewed  it  with  alarm.  "Since  I  began  this  letter/'  he 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "  a  messenger  came  to  tell  me  that 
Bob  was  lost;  but  by  the  time  I  reached  the  house, 
his  mother  had  found  him  and  had  him  whipped, 
and  by  now,  very  likely  he  is  run  away  again. " 

When  this  same  Bob  was  bitten  by  a  dog,  his  anx- 
ious and  always  superstitious  father  dropped  every- 
thing and  took  him  to  Indiana  that  a  wonderful  mad- 
stone  in  that  state  might  be  applied  to  the  wound. 
The  boys  could  go  to  his  office  and  pull  down  the 
law  books,  scatter  legal  documents  over  the  floor, 
and  bend  the  points  of  the  pens  without  ruffling 
his  temper,  however  much  they  annoyed  his  partner, 

For  Lincoln,  the  office  was  merely  a  shelter  and 
a  lounging  place,  with  a  chair  to  sit  on  and  a  sofa 
worn  by  use  to  fit  his  reclining  body.  His  mind 
was  orderly  in  a  remarkable  degree.  His  thought 
was  clear  and  straight.  He  always  knew  just  where 
to  find  anything  in  the  carefully  arranged  compart- 
ments of  his  well-stocked  head.  His  memory  was 
most  trustworthy.  He  made  no  notes  in  preparing 
his  cases.  A  desk  was  a  good  enough  foot-rest  for 
him,  but  that  was  all.  He  would  rather  write  on 
his  knee,  while  his  hat  was  sufficiently  large  to  ac- 
commodate his  letters  and  the  memoranda  of  his 
thoughts,  which  he  made  from  time  to  time  on  bits 
of  paper. 

xoo 


HOME   AND   NEIGHBORS 


"When  I  received  your  letter,"  he  wrote  to  a 
client,  "I  put  it  in  my  old  hat,  and,  buying  a  new 
one  the  next  day,  the  old  one  was  laid  aside  and  the 
letter  was  lost  sight  of  for  a  time.,,  Usually  when 
the  hat  became  crowded,  he  dumped  its  varied 
contents  in  a  pile  and  labelled  it  thus,  "When  you 
can't  find  it  anywhere  else,  look  in  this." 

He  never  kept  any  books  or  accounts.  If  he  re- 
ceived a  fee  in  the  absence  of  his  partner,  he  would 
carefully  divide  it  at  once,  wrap  up  the  latter's  share, 
mark  it  "Herndon's  half,"  and  place  it  in  the  drawer. 

Lincoln  liked  to  lie  on  the  sofa  and  read  the  news- 
papers, and  to  the  distraction  of  his  partner  read 
aloud,  because,  as  he  explained,  in  that  way  he  took 
in  what  he  was  reading  by  the  ear  as  well  as  by 
the  eye.  He  was  not,  however,  a  regular  reader 
of  books,  except  for  some  special  purpose  which 
he  had  in  hand.  He  knew  the  BiMe  well,  and  he 
knew  much  of  Shakespeare.  He  waj  fond  of  Burns 
and  Milton.  Beyond  these  great  works,  from  which 
he  could  recite  long  passages,  he  never  went  far  in 
the  field  of  literature. 

"Immortality,"  that  morbidly  mournful  poem  with 
its  familiar  line, 

"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ?" 
remained   to   the  end    the    oft-quoted  and  favorite 
expression  of  his  melancholy  nature. 

IOI 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


He  took  no  interest  in  local  gossip  and  no  part 
in  local  rivalries.  He  was  indifferent  to  town  and 
county  politics.  He  never  held  aloof,  however, 
from  his  townsfolk.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  always 
a  sympathetic  sharer  in  their  pleasures  and  their 
troubles,  ever  ready  to  lend  a  hand  to  a  neighbor 
in  need.  One  of  the  last  criminal  cases  he  tried 
was  undertaken  for  a  humble  friend,  in  the  midst 
of  absorbing  political  activities. 

The  son  of  that  Jack  Armstrong,  the  champion 
of  Clary's  Grove,  whose  loyal  friendship  Lincoln 
had  won  by  whipping  him  in  open  battle  at  New 
Salem,  was  on  trial  for  killing  a  man.  Jack  was 
in  his  grave,  but  his  widow  turned  to  Lincoln  to 
save  her  boy.  He  gratefully  remembered  that  the 
poor  woman  had  been  almost  a  mother  to  him  in 
his  friendless  days  and  that  her  cabin  had  been  his 
home  when  he  had  no  other.  He  laid  aside  all 
else  now  and  went  to  her  aid.  The  defendant's 
guilt  was  extremely  doubtful. 

The  chief  witness  testified  that  he  saw  the  boy 
strike  the  fatal  blow  and  that  the  scene  occurred 
about  eleven  o'clock  at  night.  Lincoln  inquired  how 
he  could  have  seen  so  clearly  at  that  late  hour. 
"  By  the  moonlight,"  the  witness  answered. 
"Was  there  light  enough  to  see  everything  that 
happened  ?"   Lincoln   asked. 

102 


HOME   AND   NEIGHBORS 


"The  moon  was  about  in  the  same  place  the  sun 
would  be  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  nearly 
full,"  the  man  on  the  stand  replied. 

Almost  instantly  Lincoln  held  out  a  calendar. 
By  this  he  showed  that  on  the  night  in  question, 
the  moon  was  only  slightly  past  its  first  quarter, 
that  it  set  within  an  hour  after  the  fatal  occurrence, 
and  that  it  could,  therefore,  have  shed  little  or  no 
light  on  the  scene  of  the  alleged  murder.  The 
crowded  court  was  electrified  by  the  disclosure. 

"  Hannah, "  whispered  Lincoln  as  he  turned  to 
the  mother,  "Bill  will  be  cleared  before  sundown. " 

Then,  addressing  the  jury,  he  told  them  how  he 
had  come  to  the  boy's  defence,  not  as  a  hired  at- 
torney, but  to  discharge  a  debt  of  friendship  incurred 
in  the  days  when  friends  were  few.  With  genuine 
feeling  he  summoned  up  the  picture  of  the  simple 
past,  the  old  log-cabin  of  the  Armstrongs',  where 
the  good  woman  now  beside  him  in  her  silvered 
ocks  had  taken  him  in,  and  given  him  food  and 
shelter,  and  how  she  mended  his  tattered  clothes 
while  he  rocked  Bill  to  sleep  in  the  cradle. 

Every  member  of  the  jury  loved  Lincoln  and 
honored  him.  With  tears  of  sympathy  flowing 
down  their  cheeks,  they  gladly  gave  him  the  verdict 
which,  with  his  whole  heart,  he  begged  from  their 
hands. 

103 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CALLED   TO    HIS    LIFE    MISSION 


The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  passed  by  the  Senate 
and  celebrated  by  the  firing  of  cannon,  March  4,  1854.  —  The 
North's  rude  awakening.  —  Compromise,  the  old  policy  of 
the  nation,  thrown  to  the  winds.  —  Slavery  threatening  the 
free  soil  of  the  West.  —  The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  and  Sena- 
tor Stephen  A.  Douglas's  popular  sovereignty  plan.  —  Lincoln 
stirred  as  never  before.  —  His  first  debates  with  Douglas.  — 
Lincoln  gave  way  to  Lyman  Trumbull,  who  was  elected  to 
the  Senate  in  1855. — The  famous  "Lost  Speech"  delivered 
at  Bloomington,  Illinois,  May  29,  1856,  when  reporters  forgot 
their  duty  as  they  sat  bound  in  the  spell  of  Lincoln's  earnest- 
ness. —  Lincoln's  name  presented  for  Vice-president  to  the 
first  Republican  National  Convention  in  1856.  —  How  he 
received  the  news. 

The  iron-throated  cannon  of  the  Washington 
Navy  Yard,  which,  exulting  over  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  broke  the  stillness  of  the 
dawn  of  a  March  day  in  the  year  1854,  was  the  signal 
gun  that  awakened  the  sleeping  nation  to  the  last 
great  conflict  between  freedom  and  slavery.  While 
it  proclaimed  to  the  South  the  promise  of  more  slave 
territory  and  more  slave  states,  the  North  was  rudely 
startled  from  its  dream  of  peace  and  security.  Its 
echo,  rolling  over  mountain  and  plain,  called  Lincoln 
to  his  life  mission. 

104 


CALLED   TO   HIS   LIFE   MISSION 

Compromise  had  been  the  policy  of  the  country 
since  the  beginning.  Now  that  policy  was  thrown 
to  the  winds.  The  Constitution  itself  was  a  com- 
promise. It  had  contemplated  the  prohibition  of 
the  African  slave  trade,  but  to  satisfy  the  interests 
involved  it  had  forbidden  Congress  to  stop  it  until 
the  lapse  of  twenty  years.  The  Ordinance  of  1787 
did  not  interfere  with  the  spread  of  slavery  into 
the  Mississippi  Valley  of  the  South,  but  it  forbade 
it  forever  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  a  vast  region 
stretching  from  the  Ohio  to  the  upper  waters  of  the 
Mississippi. 

Following  the  purchase  of  the  immense  territory 
of  Louisiana  from  France,  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise of  1820  was  devised.  Missouri  was  to  be 
admitted  as  a  slave  state,  but  slavery  ever  thereafter 
was  to  be  excluded  from  the  great  plain  lying  be- 
tween the  Mississippi  and  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  above  the  parallel  of  360  30'. 

When  the  war  with  Mexico  had  brought  another 
large  addition  to  the  national  domain,  the  Com- 
promise of  1850  was  made.  By  this  compromise 
the  South  agreed  that  California  should  be  admitted 
as  a  free  state,  while  the  North  conceded  that  all 
the  rest  of  the  newly  acquired  soil  should  be  left 
unpledged  either  to  freedom  or  to  slavery,  and  at 
the  same  time  it  accepted  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act 

105 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


an  extreme  measure  which  compelled  the  returi? 
of  runaway  slaves,  who  sought  refuge  within  the 
borders  of  the  free  states. 

With  the  adoption  of  each  of  these  historic  com- 
promises, the  statesmen  who  made  them  united 
in  congratulating  the  country  on  a  happy  solution 
of  the  vexed  problem  for  all  time.  Both  political 
parties  joined  in  hailing  the  Compromise  of  1850 
as  the  end  of  the  long  feud  between  the  sections. 
They  agreed  with  one  voice  that  the  disturbing 
subject  should  be  banished  from  discussion. 

"There  shall  be  no  more  agitation,"  Daniel 
Webster  thundered.  "We  will  have  peace."  At 
the  same  time  Henry  Clay  complimented  the  country 
on  the  acceptance  of  the  Compromise  everywhere 
"outside  of  Boston,"  while  Douglas  positively  an- 
nounced that  he  never  would  make  another  speech 
on  the  hateful  subject  of  slavery.  Lincoln  was  not 
in  politics,  but  he  adopted  the  opinion  of  the  leaders 
of  both  parties  at  Washington  that  the  question  was 
settled. 

It  was  a  problem,  however,  which  never  had  shown 
any  pity  for  the  repose  of  the  Union,  and  within 
three  years  it  rose  again,  a  spectre  at  the  feast.  The 
time  had  come  for  Congress  to  set  up  territorial 
governments  in  that  part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
lying  west  of  the  Missouri  River.     This  was  a  tract 

106 


CALLED   TO   HIS   LIFE   MISSION 

of  land  four    hundred    and    seventy-five    thousand 
square  miles  in  extent  and  all  of  it  bore  the  com 
mon  name  of  Nebraska. 

Less  than  a  thousand  white  persons  were  scattered 
over  that  wild  empire,  which  to-day  includes  the 
states  of  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Montana,  and  the  two 
Dakotas,  and  parts  of  Colorado  and  Wyoming. 
It  lay  almost  wholly  north  of  the  line  drawn  in  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  and  by  that  act,  slavery  was 
excluded  from  its  soil. 

The  South  now  pointed  out  that  the  Compromise 
ot  1850  had  left  the  question  of  slavery  or  freedom 
to  be  decided  by  the  people  of  the  territories  of  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  which  were  acquired  in  the  Mexi- 
can War,  and  it  demanded  that  Nebraska  be  treated 
in  strict  accordance  with  the  true  spirit  of  that 
Compromise.  All  the  territory  of  the  United  States, 
the  southern  leaders  insisted,  belonged  equally  to 
the  people,  North  and  South,  and  Congress  had  no 
right  to  exclude  from  it  the  lawful  property  of 
any  citizen,  whether  it  be  property  in  slaves  or  in 
horses. 

The  chairman  of  the  Senate  committee  in  charge 
of  the  subject  was  Stephen  A.  Douglas  of  Illinois. 
He  had  been  a  close  second  in  the  race  for  the 
Democratic  nomination  for  President  a  little  while 
before,  and  was  aflame  with  desire  for  the  nomina- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


tion  in  the  coming  campaign.  The  South  had  the 
power  to  bestow  or  withhold  the  great  prize  which 
he  sought.     For  a  time  Douglas  hesitated. 

In  the  end  he  yielded  to  the  voice  of  ambition 
and  became  the  able  champion  of  the  repeal  of  that 
time-honored  compact,  the  Missouri  Compromise. 
He  proposed,  in  the  creation  of  the  territories  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska,  to  leave  to  the  settlers,  to 
the  "popular  sovereignty,"  as  he  pleasingly  termed 
it,  whether  slavery  should  be  adopted  or  forbidden 
on  their  soil,  and  he  battled  for  his  plan  with  the 
might  of  a  "little  giant,"  by  which  name  his  ad- 
mirers delighted  to  speak  of  him. 

With  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act, 
the  agitation  of  the  question  of  slavery  ceased  to 
be  local  to  Boston,  as  Clay  had  flattered  himself 
only  four  years  before,  and  ceased  to  be  confined  to 
Massachusetts  or  New  England.  An  outburst  of 
passion  swept  the  land  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pa- 
cific, as  the  people  of  the  North,  with  the  freshly 
printed  pages  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  before  them, 
saw  the  institution  cast  its  dark  shadow  across  the 
free  plains  of  the  far  West. 

Douglas  was  for  the  moment  bewildered  by  the 
storm  of  earnest  protest.  "This  tornado,"  he  ex* 
claimed,  "has  been  raised  by  Abolitionists  and 
Abolitionists   alone."     Abolitionists,   however,  were 

108 


CALLED   TO   HIS   LIFE   MISSION 

still  few  in  number.  If  it  had  been  a  question 
of  abolishing  slavery  in  the  South,  he  could  have 
counted  its  advocates  by  the  hundred.  It  was  now 
a  question  of  abolishing  freedom  in  the  North,  and 
the  people  rallied  to  the  standard  by  the  tens  of 
thousands. 

Douglas  afterward  said  that  when  he  left  Washing- 
ton he  could  have  traveled  from  Boston  to  Chicago 
by  the  light  of  his  own  burning  effigies.  Arriving 
in  the  latter  city,  then  his  home,  he  was  greeted 
by  sullen  crowds  in  the  streets,  while  flags  drooped 
at  half  mast  on  the  vessels  and  at  half  staff  on  the 
buildings.  The  bells  were  tolled  at  sunset,  as  if  for 
his  funeral.  A  meeting  was  arranged  for  him  in 
the  open  air,  but  there  he  was  received  with  hisses 
and  groans.  As  these  grew  louder  and  louder,  tKs 
long-time  master  of  popular  audiences  angrily  bu^ 
vainly  shouted  for  attention.  For  more  than  two 
hours  the  struggle  continued,  until  at  last  he  with- 
drew and  the  crowd  roared  in  triumph. 

Quitting  the  frowning  city,  he  went  into  the  coun* 
try,  where  he  still  met  with  coldness  or  worse,  unti! 
he  turned  his  face  southward,  when  his  welcome  im- 
proved. At  Springfield,  however,  he  was  confronted 
by  a  figure  more  menacing  to  his  progress  than  the 
noisy  thousands  of  a  city  mob.  It  was  the  earnest 
figure  of  Lincoln,  which  Douglas,  in  his  swift  climb 

109 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


up  the  heights  of  fame,  had  left  and  all  but  forgotten 
in  the  obscurity  of  a  country  law  office. 

Lincoln  was,  as  he  said,  losing  interest  in  politics 
when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  stirred 
him  as  he  never  had  been  stirred  before.  It  is  true 
he  had  not  at  any  time  looked  upon  the  institution 
of  slavery  with  indifference.  It  had,  he  wrote. 
"  continually  exercised  the  power  to  make  me  miser 
able." 

When,  as  a  flatboatman,  he  saw  the  young  woman 
on  the  slave  block  at  New  Orleans  offered  to  the  high- 
est bidder,  his  hot  indignation  was  aroused.  Again, 
as  a  young  legislator,  when  he  heard  a  unanimous 
shout  of  approval  of  a  resolution  denouncing  all 
agitation  of  the  question,  he  and  one  other  member 
stood  alone  in  recording  their  judgment  that  slavery 
was  wrong. 

When  he  saw  the  slave  pen  of  Washington  from 
the  door  of  the  Capitol  and  saw  negroes  held  as 
chattels  in  the  Federal  city,  he  offered  a  bill  abolish- 
ing slavery  and  the  trade  in  human  beings  in  the 
District  of  Columbia.  Now,  when  he  saw  slavery 
threatening  the  free  soil  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska, 
he  felt  the  crisis  had  come  between  freedom  and 
bondage,  and  that  a  great  and  solemn  duty  was 
marked  out  for  him. 

The   man   stood  before  his  friends  transformed. 

no 


CALLED   TO   HIS   LIFE   MISSION 

Some  of  the  most  influential  among  them  fell  away 
from  him  in  his  zeal  in  the  new  cause.  He  cared 
to  talk  of  nothing  else.     He  ceased  to  jest. 

The  Legislature  to  be  elected  that  year  would 
have  the  duty  of  electing  an  associate  for  Douglas 
in  the  Senate,  and  Lincoln  became  the  Whig  candi- 
date for  that  seat.  He  prepared  himself  by  study  as 
if  he  had  been  richly  retained  in  a  great  law  case. 

In  his  opening  speech  at  Springfield,  Douglas  said 
he  understood  that  "Mr.  Lincoln  of  this  city"  would 
reply  to  him.  Lincoln  was  in  the  audience  and  the 
next  night,  there  in  the  State  House,  he  delivered 
his  rejoinder  before  an  assemblage  that  crowded 
the  hall.  He  had  invited  Douglas  to  attend,  and 
while  he  spoke  the  Senator  sat  directly  in  front  of 
him  and  more  than  once  started  to  his  feet  as  he 
felt  the  force  of  his  adversary's  logic. 

For  four  hours  Lincoln  spoke  with  an  earnestness 
which  shook  his  giant  frame  and  awed  friend  and 
foe  alike.  Without  fear  of  the  brilliant  debater 
who  had  crossed  swords  with  Webster  and  the  great 
orators  of  the  Senate,  he  challenged  him,  point  by 
point.  From  this  time  he  was  the  leader  of  his 
party  in  the  state,  and  from  all  parts  of  Illinois 
urgent  requests  for  speeches  poured  in  upon  him. 

He  followed  Douglas  to  Peoria,  and  there,  in 
a  big  meeting,  they  divided  the  time  between  them 

in 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


His  readiness  in  the  debate  amazed  his  opponent. 
By  his  clear  reasoning,  he  coined  his  arguments 
into  powerful  maxims,  so  simple  that  they  sank  into 
the  understanding  of  every  hearer :  "  When  the  white 
man  governs  himself,  that  is  self-government;  but 
when  he  governs  himself  and  also  governs  another 
man,  that  is  more  than  self-government  —  that  is 
despotism. "  "No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern 
another  man  without  that  other's  consent."  "Re- 
peal the  Missouri  Compromise,  repeal  all  compro- 
mise, repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  repeal 
all  past  history,  still  you  cannot  repeal  human  na- 
ture "  "Our  Republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed 
in  the  dust.  Let  us  purify  it.  Let  us  turn  and 
wash  it  white,  in  the  spirit  if  not  in  the  blood  of 
the  Revolution." 

Thus  a  new  voice  was  raised  in  the  land,  not,  it 
is  true,  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  nor  yet  in  Faneuil 
Hall  or  before  a  brilliant  assemblage  in  a  great  city 
with  the  presses  waiting  to  spread  its  utterance 
abroad.  It  was  lifted  far  out  on  the  prairies,  where 
there  were  no  reporters  to  echo  it;  yet,  in  good  time, 
it  was  heard  all  over  the  country.  There  was  no 
report  whatever  of  the  Springfield  speech;  the 
Peoria  speech,  Lincoln  wrote  out  in  his  own  hand 
for   his   home   paper. 

Douglas  frankly  told  him  that  he  had  given  him 

112 


CALLED   TO   HIS   LIFE  MISSION 

more  trouble  than  Sumner,  Seward,  Chase,  or  any 
of  the  men  he  had  met  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate. 
They  had  agreed  to  debate  at  another  meeting 
near  by,  but  the  debate  did  not  take  place.  On 
the  contrary,  to  the  surprise  of  their  followers, 
they  parted,  each  going  to  his  home.  Douglas  may 
have  cried  enough  and  begged  off  on  account  of 
ill  health,  as  it  is  asserted  he  did;  but  there  is  nc 
record  by  which  to  solve  the  mystery  of  the  sudden 
ending  of  the   campaign. 

Lincoln's  side  won  in  the  election,  but  he  failed 
to  be  chosen  Senator  because  a  few  anti-Douglas 
Democrats  in  the  Legislature  refused  to  vote  for 
a  Whig.  He  yielded  to  them  and  gave  the  election 
to  Lyman  Trumbull,  an  able  member  of  their  party, 
who  was  not  less  zealous  than  himself  in  opposing 
slavery  in  the  territories. 

Though  defeated,  he  did  not  lower  the  standard 
which  he  had  raised.  Every  event  justified  his 
belief  that  the  crisis  had  come.  Under  the  lead 
of  Douglas,  Congress  had  left  the  question  of  slavery 
to  be  decided  by  the  settlers  on  the  plains,  and  Kansas 
became  a  bloody  battleground  between  armed  men, 
who  rushed  in  from  the  North  and  from  the  South 
and  who  debated  the  problem  with  knives  and 
rifles  and  the  torch.  Rival  settlements  and  govern- 
ments of  Northerners  and  Southerners  were  broken 
i  "3 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


up  and  destroyed  in  a  war  of  extermination  almost 
as  savage  as  any  that  had  ravaged  the  land  when 
tribes  of  red  men  fought  for  the  possession  of  it. 
Indeed,  white  women  fled  with  their  children  to  the 
protection  of  the  Indians. 

When  the  campaign  for  the  election  of  President 
came  in  1856,  the  Whig  party  was  a  wreck.  Lincoln 
joined  the  organization  which  rose  on  its  ruins 
and  became  a  Republican.  He  was  welcomed  at 
the  State  Convention  of  the  new  party  as  its  natural 
leader.  There,  speaking  for  the  first  time  as  a  Re- 
publican, the  great  cause  in  which  his  whole  soul 
was  enlisted  moved  him  to  deliver  an  address  of 
such  wonderful  power  that  even  the  press  reporters 
forgot  their  duty  as  they  sat  bound  in  its  spell,  and 
it  has  passed  into  history  as  the  "lost  speech,"  The 
reports  all  praised  it  and  editors  drew  their  texts 
from  it;  but  no  one  could  reproduce  the  "lost 
speech."  The  delegates,  however,  carried  its  in- 
spiration with  them  to  the  first  National  Conven- 
tion of  the  Republican  party  about  to  meet  in 
Philadelphia. 

While  that  Convention  was  in  session,  Lincoln 
was  on  the  circuit,  trying  cases.  One  noon  as  he 
came  to  dinner  at  the  tavern  where  he  was  staying 
he  found  an  excited  group,  discussing  the  news  from 
the  Philadelphia  Convention,  which  they  were  reading 

114 


CALLED   TO   HIS    LIFE   MISSION 

in  a  Chicago  paper.  Fremont  had  been  nominated 
for  President,  and  in  the  balloting  for  Vice-president 
one  hundred  and  ten  votes  were  recorded  for  Lin- 
coln. The  latter  protested  with  a  careless  air,  that 
they  could  not  have  been  thinking  of  him,  and  that 
the  votes  must  have  been  meant  for  a  Massachusetts 
Lincoln. 

Further  reports,  however,  showed  that  the  Illinois 
delegates  had  proudly  presented  the  name  of  the 
author  of  the  "lost  speech/'  and  while,  happily,  he 
was  not  chosen  for  the  second  place  on  the  ticket, 
they  had  introduced  to  the  nation  the  name  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


"a  house  divided  against  itself" 


*The  Lincoln-Douglas  contest  for  the  Senate  in  1858.  —  Douglas's 
restored  popularity.  —  Leading  Republicans  discourage  any 
opposition  to  the  "Little  Giant's"  reelection.  —  Lincoln 
alarmed  by  the  Dred  Scott  Decision,  March  6,  1857.  —  Deaf 
to  friends  who  warned  him  against  declaring  that  the  Union 
could  not  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  —  His  celebrated 
opening  speech  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  June  16,  1858.  —  He 
matched  himself  against  Douglas  at  the  climax  of  the  latter's 
brilliant  career.  —  Their  personal  references  to  each  other.  — 
"You  cannot  fool  all  the  people  all  the  time." 

When  Douglas  went  before  the  people  of  Illinois 
In  1858,  asking  for  a  third  term  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  Lincoln  dared  to  match  himself 
against  the  most  famous  and  brilliant  campaigner 
of  the  time,  at  the  height  of  his  popularity. 

By  his  remarkable  skill  in  juggling  the  issues 
of  the  hour,  Douglas  seemed  to  have  regained  the 
favor  he  had  lost  by  his  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. Balancing  between  the  North  and  the 
South,  he  had  raised  in  each  section  the  hope  that 
his  great  weight  would  be  lent  to  its  cause.  Now, 
on  the  eve  of  his  canvass  for  reelection,  he  boldly 
arrayed  himself  against  President  Buchanan  and 
the  national  administration  of  his  owr  party  on  a 

06 


"A  HOUSE   DIVIDED   AGAINST   ITSELF" 

question  arising  in  the  bitter  struggle  between  the 
forces  of  slavery  and  antislavery  in  Kansas,  and 
took  his  stand  with  the  Republicans  in  the  Senate. 
His  display  of  courage  won  for  him  loud  applause 
throughout  the  North. 

Horace  Greeley  and  other  distinguished  Re- 
publican leaders  urged  the  Republicans  of  Illi- 
nois to  join  hands  with  him  and  return  him  to 
the  Senate  by  a  unanimous  vote.  Lincoln  was 
deaf  to  these  appeals.  He  believed  the  time  had 
passed  for  compromise  on  the  question  of  the 
spread  of  slavery.  He  was  in  no  mood  to  play 
politics  in  what  he  solemnly  felt  was  a  crisis  be- 
tween right  and  wrong. 

In  the  celebrated  case  of  Dred  Scott,  the  Supreme 
Court  had  lately  decided  that  slavery  could  not  be 
excluded  from  the  territories.  That  court  of  last 
resort  now  held  that  the  Constitution  guaranteed 
forever  "the  right  to  traffic"  in  slaves,  "like  an 
ordinary  article  of  merchandise,"  in  all  the  territory 
of  the  United  States. 

Lincoln  refused  to  abide  by  this  sweeping  doctrine, 
uecause  he  believed  that  if  it  were  accepted,  the  next 
step  would  be  to  declare  that  the  free  states  them- 
selves could  not  lawfully  exclude  the  traffic  from 
their  soil.  He  foresaw  slavery  invading  his  own 
state  of  Illinois,  and  assailing  there  the  system  of 

117 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


free  labor,  by  which  he  and  men  like  him  had  toiled 
up  from  poverty  and  ignorance. 

The  battle  for  freedom  was  on  and  he  determined 
not  to  yield  an  inch  of  ground.  "I  know  there  is 
a  God,"  a  friend  has  quoted  him  as  saying  in  a 
private  talk;  "and  He  hates  injustice  and  slavery. 
I  see  the  storm  coming.  I  know  His  hand  is  in  it. 
If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me  —  and  I  think 
He  has  —  I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  nothing,  but 
truth  is  everything." 

As  the  time  drew  near,  when  the  Republicans  of 
Illinois  were  to  meet  in  convention  and  nominate 
him  as  their  candidate  for  the  Senate,  he  was  seen, 
day  after  day,  busily  making  notes  on  bits  of  paper, 
which  he  tucked  away  in  his  hat.  He  consulted 
with  no  one.  He  asked  no  advice.  He  did  not  even 
tell  his  partner  what  he  was  doing. 

On  the  day  before  the  convention  he  broke  his 
silence,  and,  calling  twelve  or  fifteen  friends  to- 
gether in  the  State  Library,  he  read  to  them  the 
speech  which  he  had  prepared  for  the  occasion,  and 
which   opened  with   this   now  immortal  statement: 

"A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand. 
I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union 
to  be  dissolved  —  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall 
—  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.     It 

1x8 


"A  HOUSE  DIVIDED   AGAINST   ITSELF" 

will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other.  Either 
the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ulti- 
mate extinction;  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  for- 
ward till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  states, 
old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South.  .  .  ." 

When  Lincoln  had  read  his  entire  speech  to  the 
little  group  of  neighbors,  every  man  present  warned 
him  that  such  a  frank  announcement  would  surely 
defeat  him  for  the  Senate;  but  one  of  them,  Mr. 
Herndon,  his  partner,  who  rejoiced  in  its  boldness, 
declared,  "Lincoln,  deliver  that  speech  as  read  and 
it  will  make  you  President."  No  one  else,  however, 
expressed  any  sympathy  with  the  utterance,  and 
most  of  those  present  warmly  denounced  it  as  fool- 
ish and  disastrous.  Lincoln  was  unmoved  by  their 
earnest  and  sometimes  angry  protests. 

"Friends,"  said  he,  "the  time  has  come  when 
these  sentiments  should  be  uttered,  and  if  it  is 
decreed  that  I  should  go  down  because  of  this  speech, 
then  let  me  go  down  linked  with  the  truth."  He 
explained  that  he  had  taken  from  the  Bible  the  state- 
ment that  "a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand,"  because  every  one  would  know  what  it 
meant,  and  that  it  would  strike  home  to  the  minds 
of  men  and  arouse  them  to  the  perils  of  the  time. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Without  changing  a  word  in  it,  he  delivered  the 
speech  the  next  day  and  braved  the  criticisms  which 
came  to  him  from  many  quarters.  He  had  thrown 
away  his  party's  chance  for  victory  and  ruined  his 
own  fortunes,  he  was  told  over  and  over  again. 
Nevertheless,  to  one  of  his  critics  he  said,  "If  I 
had  to  draw  a  pen  across  my  record  and  erase  my 
whole  life  from  sight,  and  I  had  one  poor  gift  or 
choice  left  as  to  what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck, 
I  should  choose  that  speech  and  leave  it  to  the  world 
unerased." 

Yet  he  was  not  blind  to  the  unequal  combat  on 
which  he  had  entered  and  which  his  warmest  ad- 
mirers dreaded.  Although  he  was  forty-nine  years 
old,  he  was  still  a  country  lawyer,  struggling  to  make 
a  living.  He  had  no  organized  following,  for  he 
was  not  a  politician  of  the  machine  kind.  He  was 
without  encouragement  from  the  Republicans  of 
other  states,  and  he  was  without  money.  His  sole 
reliance  must  be  the  great  truth  which  had  taken 
hold  of  him  and  made  him  its  champion. 

Douglas,  on  the  other  hand,  had  sat  on  the  bench 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  at  the  early  age  of 
twenty-eight;  he  had  entered  Congress  at  thirty-one 
and  been  a  Senator  since  his  thirty-third  year.  At 
thirty-nine  he  had  fallen  only  two  votes  behind  the 
leading   candidate  for  President   in   the   early  bal- 

120 


"A  HOUSE  DIVIDED   AGAINST   ITSELF" 

loting  of  the  Democratic  National  Convention  of 
1852,  and  had  led  all  rivals  for  that  highest  honor  on 
the  first  ballot  in  the  Convention  of  1856.  He  was 
yet  in  his  forty- fifth  year  and  marked  out  as  the 
only  choice  of  the  northern  Democracy  in  the  next 
contest  for  the   Presidency. 

For  many  years  he  had  been  the  undisputed  master 
of  politics  in  Illinois,  with  a  large,  obedient,  and  well- 
drilled  following,  proud  of  the  fame  he  had  won 
for  their  young  state  and  confident  of  the  added 
luster  he  was  to  shed  upon  it  from  the  presidential 
chair.  Through  an  ambitious  marriage  and  success- 
ful investments  in  Chicago  real  estate,  he  was  the 
possessor  of  an  independent  fortune.  A  man  of  the 
great  world,  he  had  been  welcomed  in  the  capitals 
of  Europe,  while  his  house  in  Washington  was  noted 
for  its  hospitality. 

Coming  on  from  Washington  to  open  his  cam- 
paign, he  entered  Chicago  in  a  dazzling  triumph, 
and,  in  the  presence  of  cheering  thousands,  eagerly 
took  up  the  gage  of  battle  which  Lincoln  had  thrown 
down.  His  opponent  was  there  to  hear  the  renowned 
Senator  patronizingly  refer  to  hirnas  "  a  kind-hearted, 
amiable  gentleman,  a  right  good  fellow,  a  worthy 
citizen,  of  eminent  ability  as  a  lawyer,  and,  I  have 
no  doubt,  of  sufficient  ability  to  make  a  good  Senator." 
The  issues  between  them  were  made  up,  he  said, 

121 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


as  he  rang  the  changes  on  Lincoln's  simile  of  "a 
house  divided  against  itself,"  and  they  involved  the 
questions  of  obedience  or  disobedience  to  the  decrees 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  peace  or  war  between 
the  sections. 

When  Lincoln  replied  the  next  evening,  he  pictured 
his  opponent  as  a  man  of  world-wide  celebrity,  whose 
followers  for  years  had  felt  certain  he  would  be 
President,  and  "they  have  seen  in  his  round,  jolly, 
fruitful  face,  post-offices,  marshalships,  and  cabinet 
appointments,  chargeships  and  foreign  missions 
bursting  and  sprouting  out,  ready  to  be  laid  hold 
of  by  their  greedy  hands."  No  one,  on  the  con- 
trary, Lincoln  continued,  had  ever  expected  him  to 
be  President.  "In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face  nobody 
has  ever  seen  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting  out." 
Apart  from  these  personal  references,  there  was 
little  levity  in  his  address  and  nothing  else  to  detract 
from  its  earnestness  and  force. 

A  familiar  quotation  from  Lincoln  is  attributed 
to  a  speech  which  he  made  in  the  early  part  of  his 
campaign,  but  which  cannot  be  found  in  his  published 
works.  "You  can  fool  all  the  people  some  of  the 
time,"  so  runs  the  phrase,  "  and  some  of  the  people 
all  the  time;  but  you  cannot  fool  all  the  people 
all  the  time."  After  the  most  painstaking  investi- 
gation it  is  impossible  to    say  with  certainty  where 

122 


"A  HOUSE   DIVIDED   AGAINST   ITSELF" 

or  whether  Lincoln  made  this  remark.  It  so  happily 
expresses  his  faith  in  the  final  wisdom  of  the  common 
people,  however,  that  the  words  are  likely  ever  to 
stand  to  the  credit  of  his  name. 

As  Douglas  journeyed  down  the  state,  his  triumph 
continued,  and  he  seemed  to  be  having  his  own  im- 
perious way  with  the  cheering  people.  At  Spring- 
field, Lincoln  replied  to  him,  and,  referring  to  some 
sharp  personal  flings,  he  protested  that  he  intended 
to  conduct  the  canvass  strictly  as  a  gentleman,  "in 
substance  at  least,  if  not  in  the  outside  polish.  The 
latter  I  shall  never  be,  but  that  which  constitutes 
the  inside  of  a  gentleman,  I  hope  I  understand. " 

He  confessed  he  had  been  a  <5£|at  failure"  in  the 
race  of  ambition  on  which  he  and  Douglas  had 
started  in  that  very  town  twenty  years  before,  and 
he  added,  "I  affect  no  contempt  for  the  high  eminence 
he  has  reached.  So  reached  that  the  oppressed 
of  my  species  might  have  shared  with  me  in  the 
elevation,  I  would  rather  stand  on  that  eminence 
than  wear  the  richest  crown  that  ever  pressed  a 
monarch's  brow." 


12$ 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    GREAT   DEBATE 


Douglas  challenged  by  Lincoln,  July  24,  1858. — National  at- 
tention attracted  to  their  joint  meetings.  —  The  opening  debate 
at  Ottawa,  Illinois,  August  21,  1858.  —  A  picturesque  audience. 
—  The  prairies  lit  up  by  the  camp-fires  of  the  great  crowd.  — 
Sharp  contrasts  between  the  two  antagonists.  —  Their  ap- 
pearance and  their  methods.  —  Friends  beg  Lincoln  not  to 
ask  his  "Freeport  questions,"  August  27,  1858.  —  "The 
battle  of  i860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this."  —  Douglas's  tour 
made  in  great  state  in  McClellan's  car  while  Lincoln  rode  in 
a  crowded  coach.  —  The  position  of  each  speaker  on  the  slavery 
question.  —  Douglas's  costly  campaign.  —  His  slender  victory 
at  the  polls.  —  "A  slip  and  not  a  fall." 

Lincoln  now  determined  to  challenge  Douglas 
to  meet  him  in  joint  debate.  It  was  midsummer, 
and  he  realized  he  had  not  stemmed  the  tide  of 
popular  interest  which  was  bearing  his  antagonist 
on  to  success. 

With  the  prestige  of  his  name  and  with  his  art  as 
a  stump  speaker,  Douglas  was  filling  the  eye  and  the 
ear  of  the  state,  skilfully  juggling  with  all  sorts  of 
questions.  Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  was  making 
poor  headway,  unaided,  as  he  was,  by  the  glamour 
of  victory  and  confined  by  his  own  serious  purpose 
to  the  single  issue  of  the  restriction  of  slavery.     It 

124 


THE   GREAT   DEBATE 


was  under  these  circumstances  that  he  resolved  to 
confront  his  wily  opponent  face  to  face  on  the  plat- 
form, in  an  effort  to  hold  him  to  a  logical  discussion 
of  the  real  question  of  the  campaign  and  focus 
upon  it  the  attention  of  the  people. 

Douglas  did  not  shrink  from  a  close  encounter, 
and  an  agreement  was  readily  made  for  seven 
debates.  Lincoln's  friends  were  fearful.  Not  a 
few  of  them  thought  he  was  placing  his  head  in  the 
lion's  mouth. 

The  great  battle  opened  in  August.  The  eye  of 
the  nation  was  attracted  by  the  duel.  Press  cor- 
respondents hastened  to  the  scene  from  as  far  away 
as  New  York,  and  car-loads  of  people  from  Chicago 
poured  into  the  dusty  little  village  which  had  been 
chosen  for  the  first  debate.  Country  folk  came 
the  night  before  in  wagons,  on  horseback,  and  afoot, 
and  their  camp-fires  lit  up  the  prairie  as  if  an  army 
were  in  bivouac. 

The  meeting  was  held  in  the  open  air  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  vast  throng,  before  which  the  two  cham- 
pions stood  in  sharp  contrast.  Douglas  was  hardly 
five  feet  four  inches  tall,  but  his  broad  shoulders 
and  stalwart  neck  were  surmounted  by  a  head  mas- 
sive and  majestic.  His  voice  could  deepen  to  a 
roar,  while,  well-groomed  and  prosperous-looking, 
he  strode  the  stage  as  one  at  home  and  at  ease. 

125 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Lincoln's  clothes,  on  the  contrary,  hung  on  his 
frame  of  six  feet  four  as  if  it  were  a  rack.  Little 
twinkling  gray  eyes  lit  up,  when  aroused,  the  shadows 
of  sorrow  in  his  furrowed  face,  above  which  a  shock 
of  coarse  dark  hair  tumbled  in  utter  lawlessness. 
A  high  tenor  voice,  nervously  running  almost  into 
a  piping  falsetto,  added  to  the  disappointment  of  the 
first  impression  which  his  presence  gave.  To  com- 
plete an  unpromising  picture,  his  stooping  figure 
with  the  hands  clasped  at  the  back  was  stiff  with 
awkwardness  as  he  began  to  speak. 

The  very  homeliness  of  the  man,  however,  his 
modest  bearing,  and  his  air  of  mingled  sadness  and 
sincerity  excited  sympathy  and  drew  to  him  the 
hearts  of  the  plain  people.  When  he  had  warmed 
to  his  task,  and  his  big  right  hand  had  fallen  to  his 
side,  ready  to  point  out  with  a  long,  bony  finger 
the  truth  he  felt,  and  when  his  head  swung  back- 
ward or  forward  in  an  expressive  emphasis,  the 
listeners  found  their  thought  as  well  as  their  feeling 
enlisted.  He  seemed  to  have  no  stage  manners, 
no  studied  art.  His  gestures  were  as  simple  as  his 
words,  yet  when  he  was  deeply  stirred,  waves  of 
emotion  swept  over  him,  his  thin  voice  softened 
into  music,  and  his  giant  figure  was  glorified  by 
a  heroic  spirit. 

At  the  end  of  this  first  encounter  between  the  two 

126 


THE    GREAT   DEBATE 


men,  most  of  the  politicians  on  both  sides  felt  that 
Douglas  had  outclassed  his  opponent.  Lincoln's 
partisans  in  the  crowd,  however,  did  not  share  that 
feeling.  Those  near  the  stand  rushed  upon  it,  and, 
in  their  enthusiasm,  lifted  him  to  their  shoulders  and 
bore  him  away  to  his  tavern. 

"Don't,  boys,"  he  pleaded  in  vain;  "let  me  down; 
come  now,  don't."  He  was  in  too  serious  a  mood 
to  like  any  of  the  usual  claptrap  of  campaigning. 
He  had  little  patience  with  "fizzlegigs  and  fireworks," 
as  he  described  the  spectacular  aspects  of  the  contest. 

After  the  meeting,  modestly  reassuring  a  friend, 
he  wrote,  "Douglas  and  I  for  the  first  time  this 
canvass  crossed  swords  here  yesterday.  The  fire 
flew  some  and  I  am  glad  to  say  I   am  yet  alive." 

He  determined  to  draw  a  heavier  fire  at  the  next 
chance.  The  night  before  the  second  debate  he 
showed  some  followers  the  notes  of  several  questions 
which  he  intended  to  ask  Douglas.  The  friends, 
taking  alarm,  begged  him  not  to  put  one  of  the  ques- 
tions, but  he  stood  firm  against  their  entreaties  as 
they  gathered  about  him  at  midnight  in  his  sleeping 
room. 

"If  you  put  it,"  one  of  them  finally  warned  him, 
"you  can  never  be  Senator." 

"Gentlemen,"  he  answered,  as  he  drew  his  lips 
together  between  the  words,   "I   am   killing;   larger 

127 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


game;  if  Douglas  answers,  he  can  never  be  Presi- 
dent, and  the  battle  of  i860  is  worth  a  hundred 
of  this." 

Keeping  his  resolve,  he  asked  Douglas,  the  next 
day,  if,  in  his  opinion,  the  people  of  a  territory  could 
lawfully  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  In  other 
words,  he  asked  him  if  there  was  anything  left 
of  his  popular  sovereignty  doctrine  now  that  the 
Supreme  Court  had  decided  in  the  Dred  Scott  case 
that  slavery  could  not  be  prohibited  in  the  territories. 

Douglas  answered  that  there  still  remained  a 
way  to  restrict  slavery  and  that  a  territorial  legisla- 
ture could  keep  it  out  of  the  territory  by  "  unfriendly 
legislation,"  regardless  of  the  Supreme  Court.  This 
reply  made  possible  his  success  in  Illinois  and  his 
reelection  to  the  Senate;  but  the  South,  as  Lincoln 
expected  it  would,  greeted  with  an  outburst  of 
denunciation  this  "Freeport  heresy,"  so  called 
because  of  the  name  of  the  little  town  in  which 
the  momentous  question  was  put  and  answered. 

The  debates  fully  justified  Lincoln's  purpose 
in  proposing  them.  They  aroused  public  opinion 
as  perhaps  no  other  political  meetings  anywhere 
ever  have  aroused  it.  No  one  could  ignore  the  one 
question  at  issue  or  remain  indifferent  to  the  result. 
The  excitement  spread  like  a  prairie  fire. 

People  swarmed  to  the  meetings  by  the  thousands, 

128 


THE   GREAT   DEBATE 


They  came  from  forty  and  fifty  miles  around,  entire 
families  leaving  their  homes  and  taking  their  bed- 
ding and  their  cooking  utensils  with  them.  Gay 
cavalcades  of  young  men  and  wagons  laden  with 
rustic  belles  escorted  the  speakers  to  the  meeting 
places,  which  were  roofed  by  the  open  sky  and  with 
only  the  far  horizon  of  the  flat  lands  for  their  walls. 

The  debates  were  justified  as  well  by  their  dig- 
nity. The  most  restless  and  enthusiastic  crowds 
Were  free  from  ruffianism.  The  debaters  and  their 
audiences  were  sobered  and  exalted  by  the  imposing 
theme  of  discussion.  Little  wooden  villages  were 
made  historic  by  the  immortal  words  uttered  within 
their  limits. 

Douglas  and  Lincoln  both  sought  to  avoid 
personalities,  but  the  latter' s  better  temper  gave 
him  the  advantage  in  this  respect.  Only  once  did 
he  fall  to  the  level  of  recrimination,  when  he  was 
stung  to  say  of  his  rival,  "I  don't  want  to  quarrel 
with  him  ...  to  call  him  a  liar,  but  when  I  come 
<quare  up  to  him,  I  don't  know  what  else  to  call 
dm." 

At  another  time,  however,  he  referred  to  a  certain 

*how  of  fight  which  Douglas  had  made  and  assured 

;he  people  there  would  be  no  fight  between  them. 

'He  and  I  are  about  the  best  friends  in  the  world," 

*aid  Lincoln,  "and  when  we  get  together  he  would 

C  139 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


no  more  think  of  righting  me  than  of  righting  his 
wife."  Douglas  sometimes  broke  out  with  a  fiery 
retort  to  the  "black  Republicans"  who  interrupted 
him.  "I  am  clinching  Lincoln  now,  and  you  are 
scared  to  death,"  he  shouted  one  day  when  the 
crowd  became  noisy. 

Each  man  staked  his  election  wholly  on  the  slavery 
question.  Neither  dodged  it  or  digressed  to  any 
other  subject.  The  greatest  disadvantage  which 
Douglas  suffered,  as  we  see  him  in  the  light  of  a  later 
day,  is  to  be  charged  to  the  position  he  took.  His 
face  was  turned  to  the  past  and  all  its  dark  preju- 
dices, while  Lincoln's  was  turned  to  the  future 
and  its  noble  hopes.  Douglas  had  the  Union  and 
the  Constitution,  the  Supreme  Court  and  the  su- 
premacy of  the  law,  with  which  to  round  his  swell- 
ing periods;  but  over  his  head  forever  hung  the  evil 
shadow  of  human  bondage. 

"I  don't  care  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or 
voted  down,"  he  said,  with  the  eye  of  his  ambi- 
tion always  on  the  South  and  the  Presidency. 
"  I  don't  believe  the  negro  is  any  kin  of  mine  at  all," 
he  declared,  while  he  flung  his  contempt  at  "black 
niggers"  and  demanded,  with  cynical  carelessness, 
"Who  among  you  expects  to  live,  or  have  his  children 
live,  until  slavery  shall  be  established  in  Illinois  or 
abolished  in  South  Carolina?" 

130 


Lincoln  in  his  Prime 


THE    GREAT   DEBATE 


Above  this  counsel  of  despair,  Lincoln's  tones 
rang  out  like  the  voice  of  a  prophet.  On  his  side 
there  was  no  past  with  its  legacy  of  old  wrongs  to 
be  defended.  He  took  his  stand  for  a  clear  principle, 
for  a  lofty  ideal  of  human  rights,  and  the  eternal 
years  are  his.  The  speeches  he  delivered  in  that 
campaign  have  taken  their  place  among  the  master- 
pieces of  political  oratory,  and  retain  the  power  to 
thrill  and  inspire  a  generation  unborn  when  he 
grappled  with  the  "little  giant"  on  the  plains  of 
Illinois. 

Yet  his  practical  mind  held  him  closely  to  practi- 
cal things.  He  was  not  an  Abolitionist.  Had  he 
tried  to  address  an  antislavery  meeting  in  Boston,  he 
would  have  been  hooted  off  the  platform.  He  never 
failed  to  deny  Douglas's  charge  that  he  believed  in 
"nigger  equality." 

He  frankly  said  he  would  not  make  voters  or 
jurors  of  the  negroes;  and  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  "there  is  a  physical  difference  between  the  white 
and  black  races  which  I  believe  will  forever  forbid 
the  two  races  living  together  on  social  and  political 
equality."  Nevertheless,  he  maintained  that  "in  the 
right  to  put  into  his  mouth  the  bread  that  his  own 
hands  have  earned,  the  negro  is  the  peer  of  Judge 
Douglas  or  any  other  man." 

He   raised    no    agitation    against   slavery   in   the 

*3* 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


states  where  it  was  established  under  the  authority 
of  the  Constitution,  although  he  hoped  for  its  "  ulti- 
mate peaceable  extinction"  everywhere.  His  every 
reference  to  his  own  native  South  and  to  the  slave- 
holders was  temperate  and  even  charitable. 

The  southern  people,  he  admitted,  were  acting 
as  the  people  of  the  North  would  act  in  the  same 
situation.  "If  slavery  did  not  exist  among  them, 
they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now  exist 
among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give  it  up.  .  .  . 
I  surely  will  not  blame  them  for  not  doing  what 
I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself." 

His  sole  concern  was  to  stop  the  spread  of  slavery, 
which  he  had  hated  his  life  long;  to  keep  it  out  of 
the  territories  and  out  of  the  free  states  of  the  North. 
In  this  cause  alone  he  pledged  himself  to  strive, 
until  wherever  the  Federal  government  had  power 
"the  sun  shall  shine,  the  rain  shall  fall,  and  the 
wind  shall  blow  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth  to  un- 
requited toil." 

In  the  closing  debate,  which  took  place  at  Alton, 
near  St.  Louis,  standing  where  he  could  look  across 
the  Mississippi  and  see  the  shore  of  the  slave  state 
of  Missouri,  he  rested  his  entire  case  on  the  naked 
question,  "Is  slavery  wrong?" 

"That  is  the  real  issue,"  he  said  with  solemn 
impressiveness.     "That  is  the  issue  that  will  con* 

132 


THE   GREAT  DEBATE 


tinue  in  this  country  when  these  poor  tongues  of 
Judge  Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is 
the  eternal  struggle  between  these  two  principles — • 
right  and  wrong  —  throughout  the  world." 

Lincoln's  voice,  now  at  the  end  of  the  contest, 
was  as  clear  as  in  the  beginning,  while  Douglas's 
heavier  voice  was  husky  and  broken.  In  the  course 
of  the  campaign  there  had  been  only  seven  debates, 
but  between  their  joint  meetings  each  had  delivered 
fully  a  hundred  speeches,  besides  managing  all  the 
details  of  the  canvass. 

Douglas  traveled  in  great  state  from  point  to  point 
in  the  private  car  of  George  B.  McClellan,  who  had 
lately  resigned  from  the  army  to  become  a  high 
official  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railway.  He  carried 
with  him  a  band  of  musicians,  and  on  a  flat  car 
attached  to  his  coach  was  a  cannon  to  proclaim 
his  coming.  Mrs.  Douglas  often  accompanied  the 
Senator,  and  the  influence  of  her  beauty  and  her 
gracious  manner  was  regarded  with  fear  by  her 
husband's  opponents. 

The  railway  corporation  was  not  friendly  to  the 
new  party  and  its  disturbing  agitation,  and  Lincoln 
was  obliged  to  content  himself  with  half  a  seat  in 
a  common  car.  In  such  cramped  quarters  he  was 
more  than  once  compelled  to  sit  up  through  a  weari* 
some  night  journey, 

m 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Douglas  had  spent,  In  his  lavish  manner,  eighty 
thousand  dollars  of  his  private  fortune.  Lincoln 
had  no  fortune  on  which  to  draw,  and  his  party 
had  little  machinery  to  be  run.  As  it  was,  his 
campaign  cost  him  nearly  a  thousand  dollars,  an 
expense  which  he  could  ill  afford. 

In  the  election,  Lincoln's  side  received  a  majority 
of  five  thousand  on  the  popular  vote,  but  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  districts  was  such  that  a  few  more 
Democrats  than  Republicans  were  chosen  to  the 
Legislature,  which  reelected  Douglas  to  the  Senate. 

While  Lincoln  was  walking  home  in  the  gloom 
of  the  rainy  election  night  after  reading  the  reports 
of  his  defeat,  he  lost  his  footing  in  the  muddy  street; 
but,  recovering  his  balance,  he  drew  from  the  little 
incident  a  good  omen,  saying  to  himself  as  his 
thought  recurred  to  the  event  of  the  day,  "It  is 
a  slip  and  not  a  fall/' 


234 


CHAPTER  XVI 

A   NATIONAL   FIGURE 


*The  fight  must  go  on." — "I  shall  fight  in  the  ranks." — Douglas's 
dearly  bought  victory.  —  Lincoln,  lacking  money  for  house- 
hold expenses  at  end  of  campaign,  returned  to  work  on  the 
circuit.  —  Rising  demand  upon  him  to  speak  in  all  parts  of 
the  country.  —  Answering  Douglas  in  Ohio,  September,  1859. 
—  His  position  on  Knownothingism  defined.  —  Proposed  for 
the  Presidency.  —  "I  am  not  fit  to  be  President."  —  Address- 
ing a  great  meeting  in  Cooper  Union,  New  York,  February  27, 
i860.  —  His  triumphs  in  the  East.  —  His  New  Haven  speech 
held  up  as  an  example  in  English  before  a  class  at  Yale. 

Lincoln  had  met  his  Bunker  Hill.  He  had 
taken  his  stand  and  fought  a  good  fight  in  a  cause 
that  could  not  fail.  "Though  I  now  sink  out  of 
view  and  shall  be  forgotten/'  he  wrote  to  a  dis- 
consolate supporter,  "I  believe  I  have  made  some 
marks  which  will  tell  for  the  cause  of  civil  liberty 
long  after  I  am  gone."  Another  received  this  coun- 
sel from  the  defeated  candidate,  "Let  the  past  as 
nothing  be.  .  .  .  The  fight  must  go  on,"  and  "I 
shall  fight  in  the  ranks." 

Douglas's  victory  was  his  own  undoing.  The 
Democrats  of  the  South,  indignant  over  the  ad- 
missions and  concessions  which  he  had  felt  forced 

*35 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


to  make  in  his  debates  with  Lincoln,  denounced 
him  as  a  traitor  to  his  party.  He  had  won  the  Sena- 
torship  but  was  losing  the  Presidency.  With  his 
usual  boldness  he  hastened  southward  to  reassure 
the  people  of  the  slave  states  that  he  had  really 
yielded  nothing  of  value  to  the  interests  of  slavery. 
The  Almighty,  he  pleaded,  had  drawn  a  line  between 
slave  labor  and  free  labor,  and  slavery  could  not  be 
adopted  with  profit  in  the  territory  of  the  North- 
west. 

His  valiant  efforts  to  bridge  the  chasm  were  all 
in  vain.  The  house  was,  in  truth,  divided  against 
itself.  Each  day  verified  anew  Lincoln's  stern 
metaphor.  Even  the  Christian  Church,  in  most 
of  its  denominations,  was  divided  against  itself 
along  Mason  and  Dixon's  unhappy  line. 

Douglas's  own  party  was  hopelessly  divided 
against  itself,  and  he  returned  to  Washington  to 
find  that  the  Democratic  caucus  of  the  Senate  had 
removed  him  in  disgrace  from  the  chairmanship  of 
the  committee  on  territories  which  he  had  held  for 
eleven  years.  Jefferson  Davis  and  other  southern 
senators  vigorously  assailed  the  "Freeport  heresy," 
and  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  were  the  subject 
of  earnest  discussion  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate 
through  two  sessions. 

Meanwhile   Lincoln  was   again   at  work  on  the 

136 


A  NATIONAL   FIGURE 


circuit  in  the  old  task  of  getting  a  living.  The  lost 
time  and  his  campaign  expenses  had  told  heavily  on 
his  slender  purse.  "I  am  absolutely  without  money," 
he  explained,  "even  for  household  expenses." 

As  the  state  campaigns  of  1859  were  opened,  his 
services  were  called  for  in  many  places,  Kansas, 
Minnesota,  and  Iowa  being  among  the  earliest  to 
seek  his  aid.  Wherever  Douglas  appeared,  there 
was  a  loud  demand  for  Lincoln.  Distant  New 
Hampshire  urged  him  to  come  there  to  answer  his 
famous  adversary,  and  New  York  and  Ohio  made 
like  requests.  "I  have  been  a  great  man  such  a 
mighty  little  time,"  he  confessed  to  an  enthusiastic 
admirer,  "that  I  am  not  used  to  it  yet." 

An  Indiana  leader  wrote  to  tell  him  that  his  counsel 
carried  such  weight  that  every  political  letter  falling 
from  his  pen  was  copied  throughout  the  Union. 
In  these  letters,  which  he  wrote  to  his  correspondents 
2nd  to  committees,  he  modestly  offered  much  sane 
advice. 

"I  have  some  little  notoriety,"  he  observed  on 
the  subject  of  Knownothingism,  "for  commiserating 
the  oppressed  condition  of  the  negro ;  and  I  should 
be  strangely  inconsistent  if  I  could  favor  any  project 
for  curtailing  the  existing  rights  of  white  men,  even 
though  born  in  different  lands  and  speaking  different 
languages  from  myself." 

137 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


To  a  Boston  organization  he  sent  this  clear 
message:  "This  is  a  world  of  compensation,  and 
he  who  would  be  no  slave  must  be  content  to  have 
no  slave.  Those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve 
it  not  for  themselves,  and,  under  a  just  God,  cannot 
long  retain  it." 

When  Douglas  went  to  Ohio,  Lincoln  accepted 
urgent  invitations  to  answer  him  at  Cincinnati  and 
Columbus.  There  the  Republican  State  Committee 
published  the  reports  of  the  Illinois  debates  and 
Lincoln's  two  Ohio  speeches  for  general  circulation, 
as  the  best  means  of  educating  the  people  on  the 
issues  of  the  coming  campaign  of  i860.  Thus  Lin- 
coln was  chosen  as  the  champion  of  his  party's 
cause  before  the  entire  nation,  and  three  huge 
editions  of  the  addresses  found  a  ready  sale. 

The  men  around  him,  as  they  gazed  wonderingly 
on  the  growing  fame  of  their  simple  neighbor,  began 
to  dream  of  high  honors  in  store  for  him.  One  little 
weekly  paper  in  central  Illinois  already  carried  at 
the  head  of  its  columns  the  name  of  Lincoln  for 
President.  He  himself,  however,  did  not  yet  share 
these  dreams. 

"What  is  the  use  of  talking  of  me,  while  we  have 
such  men  as  Seward  and  Chase?"  he  said,  when 
stopped  on  the  street  by  an  admiring  prophet. 
u  Every  one  knows  them   and  scarcely  any  one  out- 

138 


A   NATIONAL   FIGURE 


side  of  Illinois  knows  me.  Besides,  as  a  matter 
of  justice,  is  it  not  due  to  them  ?  There  is  no  such 
good  luck  for  me  as  the  Presidency  of  these  United 
States."  With  that  he  wrapped  his  old  gray  shawl 
around  his  shoulders  and  stalked  away. 

"I  must  in  candor  say,"  he  wrote  in  a  confidential 
letter  in  the  spring  of  1859,  "that  I  do  not  think 
myself  fit  for  the  Presidency,"  and  he  requested 
that  such  a  thing  be  not  publicly  proposed.  In 
midsummer  of  that  year,  only  nine  months  before 
the  nomination  was  to  be  made,  he  repeated  this 
modest  statement,  and  as  late  as  December  indicated 
that  he  intended  to  bide  his  time  until  Douglas  came 
up  again  for  election,  five  years  away,  and  try  once 
more  for  his  seat  in  the  Senate.  "I  would  rather," 
he  said,  "have  a  full  term  in  the  Senate  than  in  the 
Presidency." 

It  was  not  until  a  meeting  of  the  party  leaders 
of  Illinois  was  held  in  the  winter  that  he  con- 
sented to  let  himself  be  presented  as  a  candidate  for 
President. 

He  was  much  pleased  by  an  invitation,  which  he 
had  received,  to  deliver  a  lecture  in  New  York. 
His  friends  were  wildly  delighted  by  this  recognition 
of  him  in  the  metropolis.  Again  he  burrowed  in 
the  State  Library  and  spared  no  pains  in  b\s  prep- 
aration  to   acquit   himself   ^tK   rredit    before    an 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


audience  of  strangers  in  the  great  city.  Lincoln 
was  not  a  diffident  man.  He  was  not  given  to  self 
depreciation.  He  felt  his  power.  He  was,  however, 
doubtful  of  his  success  before  the  New  Yorkers, 
so  different  in  their  training  and  taste  from  his 
western  people. 

Arrived  in  the  city,  he  went  to  hear  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  preach,  and,  with  a  friend,  he  visited  Five 
Points,  then  the  notorious  center  of  the  slums  of 
New  York,  where  he  found  himself  in  a  missionary 
Sunday-school.  Being  a  stranger,  he  was  called 
on  to  speak  to  the  children,  and  his  homely  and 
kindly  talk  so  pleased  them  that  they  cried,  when  he 
paused,  "Go  on,"  "Oh,  do  go  on."  As  he  was 
leaving  the  room,  the  teacher  asked  him  his  name. 
"Abraham  Lincoln,  from  Illinois,"  he  simply  an- 
swered. 

When  the  committee,  which  had  invited  him  to  New 
York,  called  on  him  at  the  Astor  House,  and  he  saw 
its  members  in  their  fashionable  attire,  he  seemed 
to  be  conscious  of  his  own  awkward  appearance  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  He  felt  under  the  neces- 
sity of  apologizing  for  the  wrinkled  condition  of  his 
suit,  which  he  had  brought  with  him  in  a  valise; 
and  in  beginning  his  speech  he  was  again  embar- 
rassed as  he  looked  at  the  well-clothed  dignitaries 
on  the  platform.     The  collar  of  his  coat  did  not 

140 


A   NATIONAL  FIGURE 


fit,  and  he  was  troubled  lest  the  audience  noted 
its  bad  habit  of  flying  out  of  place  whenever  he 
raised  his  arms. 

The  meeting,  probably  the  most  memorable  ever 
held  in  New  York,  took  place  in  Cooper  Institute. 
It  was  an  imposing  occasion.  "No  man,"  one 
newspaper  said,  "  since  the  days  of  Clay  and  Webster, 
has  spoken  to  a  larger  assemblage  of  the  intellect 
and  mental  culture  of  our  city."  William  Cullen 
Bryant  presided.  Horace  Greeley  and  men  of  light 
and  leading  were  in  attendance. 

The  speech  which  he  delivered  was  so  packed 
with  fact  and  reason  that  it  was  stripped  bare  of 
rhetorical  flourish.  It  was  a  spacious  review  of 
the  entire  constitutional,  legislative,  and  political 
history  of  the  institution  of  slavery  since  the  nation 
was  founded.  Those  who  heard  it  felt  their  intel- 
ligence complimented  by  the  moderation,  fairness, 
and  soberness  of  the  learned  argument,  fit  to  be 
addressed  to  a  bench  of  judges.  They  were  not 
called  on  to  listen  to  the  special  pleading  of  a  trim- 
ming politician,  to  suffer  their  prejudices  to  be 
aroused  by  an  artful  stump  speaker,  or  to  reward 
with  guffaws  his  idle  jests. 

"Let  us  have  faith,"  was  the  high  keynote  he 
struck,  "that  right  makes  might,  and,  in  that  faith 
kt  us  to  the  end,  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  under- 

141 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


stand  it."  The  four  leading  papers  of  the  city  re- 
ported the  speech  in  full,  and  Greeley  said  in  the 
Tribune,  "No  man  ever  before  made  such  an  im- 
pression in  his  first  appeal  to  a  New  York  audience." 

New  York  has  been  the  pitfall  of  more  than  one 
visiting  statesman.  It  was  there  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  proved  to  himself  his  power  to  lead  th^ 
nation  and  disproved  to  himself  his  original  con- 
ception that  he  was  "not  fit  to  be  President." 

From  this  great  triumph,  Lincoln  went  to  New 
England  to  see  his  son,  Robert,  who  was  at  school, 
and  he  spoke  in  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and  New 
Hampshire.  At  New  Haven  he  told  his  hearers 
that  twenty-five  years  before  he  was  "  a  hired  laborer, 
mauling  rails,  or  at  work  on  a  flatboat,"  and  that 
he  wished  every  laborer,  black  as  well  as  white,  to 
have  the  same  chance  to  rise  that  he  had  enjoyed. 

The  professor  of  rhetoric  in  Yale  College  observed 
with  admiration  the  fine  structure  of  his  speech. 
He  not  only  took  notes  of  it  and  held  it  up  before 
his  class  the  next  day  as  an  example  in  English 
composition,  but  he  followed  the  speaker  to  a  neigh- 
boring city,  that  he  might  again  sit  at  the  feet  of 
this  self-taught  master  of  our  mother  tongue. 


S42 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    STANDARD    BEARER 


Lincoln's  nomination  for  President  a  mystery  of  politics.  —  All 
signs  pointed  to  the  choice  of  Seward.  —  Seward  men  on 
their  arrival  in  Chicago  amazed  by  Lincoln's  popularity. — ■ 
The  great  scene  in  the  Wigwam  at  Chicago ;  Lincoln  nominated, 
May  1 8,  i860. — The  third  and  final  ballot:  Lincoln  of  Illinois, 
231;  Seward  of  New  York,  180;  Chase  of  Ohio,  24;  Bates 
of  Missouri,  22 ;  Collamer  of  Vermont,  5.  —  How  Lincoln 
received  the  news.  —  His  melancholy  presentiment.  —  The 
East  stunned  by  the  choice  of  the  rail-splitter.  —  Douglas's 
tribute  to  his  old-time  foe.  —  Lincoln's  silence  in  the  cam- 
paign. —  The  "Wide  Awakes"  and  their  "rail-fence  march."  — 
The  result  of  the  election,  November  6,  i860:  Lincoln  of 
Illinois,  Republican,  1,866,452;  Douglas  of  Illinois,  Northern 
Democrat,  1,375,157;  Breckinridge  of  Kentucky,  Southern 
Democrat,  847,953;  Bell  of  Tennessee,  Constitutional  Union, 
590,631.  —  Electoral  vote:  Lincoln^  180;  Breckinridge,  72; 
Bell,  39;    Douglas,  12. 


As  the  time  drew  near  for  the  meeting  of  the 
Republican  National  Convention  of  i860,  all  signs 
seemed  to  point  to  the  choice  of  William  H.  Seward 
of  New  York,  and  Lincoln's  nomination  for  Presi- 
dent remains  one  of  the  mysteries  of  politics. 

A  large  majority  of  the  representative  men  of  the 
Republican  party  throughout  the  country  favored 
Seward.     Wealth    and    influence  were    enlisted    on 

H3 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


his  side.  He  was  easily  the  foremost  member  of 
the  party.  State  after  state,  in  the  West  as  well 
as  in  the  East,  declared  for  him.  Indeed,  no 
other  candidate  had  succeeded  in  winning  any 
open  support  beyond  the  borders  of  his  own 
state.  His  opponents  were  regarded  merely  as 
"favorite  sons." 

It  has  been  estimated  that  nearly  if  not  quite 
two-thirds  of  the  delegates  went  to  the  National 
Convention  with  the  expectation  of  voting  for 
Seward  and  nominating  him.  At  least  eight  of 
the  twenty-two  delegates  from  Illinois  herself  favored 
him,  while  he  left  his  place  in  the  Senate  and  went 
home  to  be  in  readiness  to  receive  the  committee 
of  notification. 

Lincoln  had  consented  to  let  the  Republicans  of 
Illinois  present  his  name,  but  chiefly  with  the  idea 
that  in  this  way  he  might  help  the  party  in  the 
state  and  keep  himself  in  line  for  Douglas's  seat 
in  the  Senate.  He  never  was  heard  to  express  a 
definite  hope  that  he  would  be  nominated  for  Pres- 
ident. At  one  time  he  was  afraid  he  would  not 
have  the  support  even  of  his  own  state.  He  never 
looked  upon  himself  as  a  positive  and  aggressive 
candidate. 

"I  suppose,"  he  wrote  to  an  Ohio  man  two  months 
before  the  Convention,  "I  am  not  the   first  choice 

144 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


of  a  very  great  many.  Our  policy,  then,  is  to  give 
no  offense  to  others  —  leave  them  in  a  mood  to  come 
to  us  if  they  shall  be  compelled  to  give  up  their  first 
love." 

Only  a  few  weeks  in  advance  of  the  Convention, 
he  was  for  some  time  in  Chicago,  where  he  was  en- 
gaged in  court.  His  presence  in  the  city  attracted 
no  attention  among  politicians  or  in  the  press. 
Nothing  occurred  in  the  course  of  his  stay  that 
foreshadowed  the  great  acclaim  with  which,  in  that 
very  city  a  month  hence,  he  was  to  be  nominated 
for  the  highest  honor  in  the  land. 

Nevertheless,  some  of  Lincoln's  loyal  old  friends 
on  the  circuit,  the  men  whom  he  had  been  drawing 
to  him  ever  since  he  walked  into  New  Salem  with 
his  wardrobe  in  a  bandanna  handkerchief,  were 
not  inactive.  They  quietly  visited  other  states 
and  canvassed  the  public  men  at  Washington, 
sowing  the  seed  for  him  as  a  second  choice  or  as 
the  compromise  candidate. 

Yet  his  name  was  not  always  included  in  the  list 
of  possibilities  in  the  eastern  press,  and  the  East 
did  not  seriously  consider  him  in  connection  with 
the  Presidency  until  the  meeting  of  the  Illinois  State 
Convention,  which  was  held  only  one  week  before 
the  assembling  of  the  National  Convention. 

As  Lincoln  was  going  to  this  former  gathering, 
t>  145 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


some  one  expressed  his  surprise.  "Oh,"  he  smiled> 
"I  am  not  enough  of  a  candidate  to  make  it  proper 
for  me  to  absent  myself."  When,  however,  the 
State  Convention  assembled,  with  delegates  from 
all  over  Illinois  in  attendance,  an  unexpected  en- 
thusiasm for  his  candidacy  was  disclosed,  and  he 
was  unanimously  named  as  the  choice  of  the  state. 

At  the  right  moment,  John  Hanks  and  another 
man  were  marched  into  the  hall,  bearing  two  old 
rails,  which,  Hanks  declared,  Lincoln  had  split  when 
fencing  in  his  father's  farm  on  the  Sangamon,  nearly 
thirty  years  before.  The  assemblage  went  wild 
over  these  symbols  of  their  leader's  humble  toil, 
and  the  rails  were  carried  thence  to  Chicago,  where 
women  garlanded  them  with  flowers  and  where 
they  were  as  proudly  displayed  as  if  they  had  been 
the  swords  of  a  military  hero. 

Chicago  caught  the  Lincoln  contagion,  as  the 
western  people  streamed  by  the  thousands  into 
the  rude,  unkempt  city.  It  was  the  first  National 
Convention  ever  held  there,  and  indeed  the  second 
to  be  held  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  star  of 
empire,  in  its  westward  course,  had  now  risen  over 
the  great  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  a  conscious- 
ness of  their  supreme  power  in  the  nation  was 
dawning  upon  the  stalwart  builders  of  the  new  states. 

Until  now  the  South   and  the   East  had  ruled, 

146 


THE   STANDARD    BEARER 


At  last  the  scepter  was  passing  from  their  hands. 
All  the  Presidents  thus  far  had  been  born  in  the  old 
states  of  the  seaboard.  In  Lincoln,  the  rail-splitter, 
the  West  beheld  itself  typified,  and  its  people  rallied 
to  his  standard. 

As,  with  an  easy  assurance  of  command,  the  delega- 
tions of  distinguished  men  came  out  from  the  East 
under  the  banners  of  Seward,  they  were  dazed  by 
the  rising  and  boisterous  enthusiasm  for  his  almost 
unheard-of  rival. 

The  New  Yorkers  slapped  their  pockets  and 
boasted  of  the  money  they  could  raise  for  the  election, 
if  their  man  should  be  nominated.  Their  brilliant 
bands  and  drilled  clubs  marched  and  counter- 
marched in  the  dusty  streets,  but  their  lines  wavered 
under  the  cheering  onslaughts  of  the  Lincoln  men. 
Judge  David  Davis  was  on  the  scene,  tirelessly 
moving  from  headquarters  to  headquarters  in  his 
missionary  efforts,  aided  by  a  devoted  group  of 
Lincoln's  comrades  on  the  old  circuit. 

Before  the  assembling  of  the  Convention,  Indi- 
ana, a  doubtful  state  of  the  first  importance  in  the 
election,  came  out  boldly  for  the  western  candidate, 
and  demanded  his  nomination.  Ohio,  with  a  candi- 
date of  her  own,  began  to  drift  toward  Lincoln  as 
her  final  choice.  Pennsylvania,  also  with  a  home 
candidate,    tended    in    the    same     direction.     The 

147 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Chicago  newspapers  united  to  swell  the  tide.  Delega- 
tions from  all  sections  showed  signs  of  weakening. 

Seward's  long  record  on  old  issues  raised  preju- 
dices against  him.  Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand, 
stood  only  for  the  living  question  of  the  day.  Even 
on  this  he  had  a  popular  advantage  of  Seward, 
whose  battles  with  the  slave  power  in  the  Senate 
through  many  years  had  spread  abroad  the  fear 
that  he  was  a  man  of  radical  views,  while  Lincoln's 
comparative  obscurity  made  it  easier  for  the  con- 
servatives to  support  him. 

The  Convention  assembled  in  an  immense  wooden 
wigwam,  set  up  for  the  occasion,  and  ten  thousand 
spectators  crowded  into  it.  In  the  strategy  of  the 
first  two  days  the  more  skilful  politicians  of  the 
Seward  following  outgeneraled  the  opposition,  and 
the  confidence  in  the  nomination  of  the  veteran 
statesman  of  New  York  rose  to  its  climax  on  the 
very  eve  of  the  balloting.  Nearly  every  press  cor- 
respondent, from  Horace  Greeley  down,  telegraphed 
a  prediction  of  Seward's  victory. 

The  men  from  Lincoln's  circuit  did  not  lie  down 
to  sleep  that  last  night.  Their  candidate,  in  the 
quiet  of  Springfield,  had  taken  alarm  lest  their 
zeal  in  his  cause  should  blind  them  to  the  standards 
of  conduct,  which  were  more  precious  to  him  than 
any    ambition.     A    messenger    was    despatched    to 

148 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


them,  with  this  written  warning  from  Lincoln, 
*  Make  no  contracts  that  will  bind  me."  He  would 
rather  be  free  in  his  country  law  office  than  sit  in  the 
chair  of  the  President  with  a  mortgage  on  his  head. 

The  nominating  day  came.  The  Seward  clubs 
marched  the  streets  as  in  triumph.  While  they 
paraded,  however,  the  shouters  for  Lincoln  swarmed 
into  the  wigwam,  and  the  proud  paraders,  when 
they  came,  found  awaiting  them  standing  room  only, 
and  little  even  of  that.  Many  a  partisan  of  Seward 
was  left  to  waste  his  cheers  in  the  outer  air. 

In  those  days  no  speeches  were  made  in  placing 
candidates  in  nomination.  Their  names  were  merely 
proposed  and  seconded  without  remarks.  The  mo- 
tions for  Seward  were  wildly  applauded.  When, 
however,  Lincoln's  nomination  was  moved,  it  was 
seized  upon  as  the  signal  for  such  an  uproar  as  never 
had  been  heard  in  a  National  Convention.  A  leader 
had  been  carefully  chosen  for  the  purpose,  a  man  of 
extraordinary  vocal  power,  and  he  had  summoned 
from  the  prairies  a  lusty-throated  lieutenant,  who, 
though  a  Democrat,  so  delighted  to  hear  himself 
roar  that  he  did  not  object  to  lending  his  lungs  to 
the  enemy. 

At  the  close  of  these  vociferous  exercises,  men 
held  their  breath  while  the  roll  of  the  states  was 
called.     Here  again  was  the  "house  divided  against 

?49 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


itself."  Nine  states  of  the  South  did  not  respond, 
for  they  sent  no  representatives  to  the  Convention, 
and  the  names  of  some  of  them  were  hissed  and 
jeered  as  the  clerk  called  them. 

The  hopes  of  the  Seward  men  fell  as  they  heard 
Maine  give  nearly  one-third,  New  Hampshire  two- 
thirds,  and  Massachusetts  a  fifth  of  their  votes  to 
Lincoln.  Even  New  England  was  yielding  to  the 
man  from  the  West.  On  this  first  ballot,  Seward 
was  more  than  a  score  of  votes  short  of  the  neces- 
sary majority.  His  total  was  173 J  against  102  for 
Lincoln. 

Vermont  broke  to  the  Illinoisan  on  the  second 
ballot  and  Pennsylvania  swung  into  line  with  her 
large  delegation.  Lincoln  gained  throughout  the 
roll-call  and  at  the  end  Seward  was  only  three  and 
a  half  votes  ahead. 

On  the  third  ballot,  Lincoln  commanded  a  ma- 
jority of  the  Rhode  Island  and  New  Jersey  votes. 
The  Ohioans  forsook  their  candidate,  and  most 
of  them  went  to  Lincoln,  who,  at  the  close  of  the 
call,  stood  within  a  vote  and  a  half  of  victory. 
A  delegate  from  Ohio  leaped  up  and  announced 
ihe  change  of  four  votes  in  that  delegation  to 
Lincoln.     This   was    more   than   enough. 

A  clerk,  not  waiting  for  the  official  announcement 
*f  the  result,  waved  a  tally  sheet  in  the  air  and 

I5JO 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


shouted  "Abe  Lincoln!"  to  a  man  on  the  roof, 
who  was  anxiously  peering  through  the  skylight 
and  who  now  cried  the  news  to  the  crowd  in  the 
street.  The  mad  cheering  within  was  instantly 
caught  up  without,  while  the  echoes  of  a  booming 
cannon  rolled  over  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan. 

A  huge  and  horrible  picture  of  the  strange-look- 
ing man  of  destiny  was  hurried  into  the  hall,  where 
delegations,  in  an  eagerness  to  change  their  votes 
to  the  credit  of  the  winning  side,  were  frantically 
striving  to  make  themselves  heard  above  the  fierce 
din.  New  York  and  Massachusetts  dolefully  bowed 
to  the  will  of  the  majority.  Men  staggered  from 
the  exciting  scene  as  if  drunk,  the  victors  overcome 
by  a  sensation  of  joy,  the  vanquished  by  the  burden 
of  their  disappointment. 

Lincoln  relieved  the  strain  of  the  convention  days 
by  strolling  the  streets  of  Springfield,  and  by  playing 
"barn  ball "  —  simply  throwing  a  ball  against  a  wall 
and  catching  it  as  it  bounded  back.  During  the 
progress  of  the  first  two  ballots  he  sat  in  the  telegraph 
office  and  added  up  the  votes  as  the  bulletins  came 
in.  Feeling  that  his  nomination  was  assured,  he 
accepted  an  invitation  to  visit  the  office  of  the 
local  newspaper  and  wait  there  for  the  third  ballot. 
Soon  a  breathless  messenger  brought  him  the  news 
of  his  success  as  he  sat  in  the  editor's  big  arm-chair, 

151 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


"There  is  a  little  woman  down  at  our  house,  who 
will  like  to  hear  this,"  Lincoln  said,  after  he  had 
read  the  despatch  aloud.  "I'll  go  down  and  tell 
her,"  and  he  was  gone  before  any  one  in  the 
I  room  had  recovered  from  the  effect  of  the  report 
sufficiently   to  offer  congratulations. 

As  he  reached  the  sidewalk,  a  group  of  laborers, 
Irish  immigrants,  cheered  him  heartily.  "Gentle- 
men," he  said  to  them,  by  way  of  acknowledging 
their  friendly  tribute,  "you  had  better  come  up 
and  shake  my  hand  while  you  can;  honors  elevate 
some  men,  you  know." 

When  he  had  given  the  tidings  to  the  "  little  woman," 
who  had  been  the  first  to  believe  in  his  greatness 
and  who  had  been  the  most  constant  in  her  confi- 
dence that  the  world  would  recognize  it,  he  went  up- 
stairs, and,  exhausted  by  repressed  excitement,  lay 
down  on  the  couch  in  Mrs.  Lincoln's  sitting  room. 

While  lying  there  he  was  disturbed  to  see  in  a  mir- 
ror two  images  of  himself,  which  were  alike,  except 
that  one  was  not  so  clear  as  the  other.  The  double 
reflection  awakened  the  primitive  vein  of  supersti- 
tion, always  present  in  him.  He  rose  and  lay  down 
again  to  see  if  the  paler  shadow  would  vanish,  but 
he  saw  it  once  more.  Some  friends  coming  to  call, 
he  left  the  room  and  its  annoying  glass. 

When  he  was  down  town  the  next  morning,  the 

**2 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


disagreeable  impression  of  the  day  before  returned 
to  him.  He  went  home  and  reclined  on  the  couch 
to  see  if  there  were  not  something  wrong  with  the 
mirror  itself.  He  was  reassured  to  find  it  played 
the  same  trick.  When  he  tried  to  show  it  to  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  however,  the  second  reflection  failed  to 
appear.  Mrs.  Lincoln  took  it  as  a  sign  that  he 
was  to  have  two  terms  in  the  Presidency,  but  she 
feared  the  paleness  of  one  of  the  figures  signified 
that  he  would  not  live  through  the  second  term. 

He  himself  never  was  free  from  an  unhappy  pre- 
sentiment. "I  am  sure,"  he  said  to  his  partner 
once,  "I  shall  meet  with  some  terrible  end,"  and 
he  told  him  that  in  his  opinion  Caesar  had  been 
foreordained  to  be  slain  by  Brutus,  and  that  Brutus 
but  obeyed  a  law  of  his  being,  which  he  was  power- 
less to  overrule. 

The  committee  of  notables  who  came  the  day 
after  the  nomination  to  place  in  his  hand  the  standard 
of  the  Republican  party,  found  Lincoln  struggling 
to  throw  off  the  melancholy  that  had  settled  upon 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  great  success.  They  went 
to  the  unpretending  village  house  in  which  he  lived, 
curious  and  anxious  to  see  the  man  who  had  been 
chosen,  they  hardly  knew  how  or  why,  to  lead  them 
in  a  contest  more  momentous  than  any  other  in 
the  history  of  American  politics. 

153 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


On  the  committee  were  men  from  all  the  states 
that  took  part  in  the  Convention,  not  a  few  of  whom 
were  more  widely  known  than  their  nominee.  As 
they  crowded  into  the  parlor  and  approached  him, 
most  of  them  looked  on  him  for  the  first  time,  and 
several  have  recorded  the  shock  of  disappointment 
which  they  felt.  They  saw  a  man  with  none  of 
the  outlines  and  with  none  of  the  manners  of  the 
conventional  statesman,  a  new  kind  of  man  in  the 
eyes  of  the  visitors  from  the  older  states. 

He  stood  there  before  them,  stiff  and  dull,  until 
the  time  came  for  him  to  reply  to  the  address  of 
the  chairman.  Then  he  lifted  his  head  and  his 
face  lighted  up  with  strength  and  gentleness.  After 
his  brief  speech,  his  constraint  entirely  left  him  and 
he  was  as  free  as  if  among  his  familiars. 

The  guests  passed  into  the  back  parlor,  where 
Mrs.  Lincoln  greeted  them,  and  the  toasts  of  the 
evening  were  drunk  in  water,  for  Lincoln  declined 
to  open  a  lot  of  liquors,  which  some  friends  had  pro- 
vided, because  he  did  not  like  the  idea  of  changing 
the  custom  of  his  home  even  if  he  was  a  candidate 
for  President. 

"What  is  your  height?"  was  Lincoln's  greeting 
to  the  tall  member  from  Pennsylvania,  for  he  was 
always  interested  in  tall  men. 

"Six  feet,  three.     What  is  yours,  Mr.  Lincoln?" 

iS4 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


"Six  feet,  four,"  Lincoln  answered,  ever  proud  of 
his  stature. 

"Then  Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illinois,  a  land  where 
we  thought  there  were  none  but  little  giants." 

As  the  delegates  left  Chicago,  after  the  nomination, 
they  sped  homeward  across  prairies  illuminated 
with  bonfires,  and  past  villages  whose  rejoicings 
rang  out  from  all  the  belfries.  The  East,  however, 
was  stunned  by  the  seeming  prank  of  fortune  which 
had  crowned  with  the  supreme  honor  a  "third-rate 
country  lawyer,"  as  a  great  New  York  journal  said. 
The  eastern  press  spread  before  their  readers  the 
scant  biographical  sketches  of  Lincoln  which  they 
were  able  to  gather,  and  hastened  their  reporters 
to  Springfield  to  "write  up"  this  great  unknown. 

There  was  a  grave  fear  in  some  quarters  that 
a  noisy  western  crowd  had  stampeded  the  delegates 
into  the  thoughtless  choice  of  a  smart  local  politician. 
Many  caught  in  their  mind's  eye  only  the  grotesque 
picture  of  an  uncouth  rail-splitter,  pushing  himself 
forward  by  the  arts  of  a  frontier  demagogue.  "Who 
is  this  huckster  in  politics  ?"  Wendell  Phillips 
demanded  from  Boston;  "Who  is  this  county  court 
advocate  ?" 

There  was  at  least  one  man  of  note  in  Washington 
who  could  speak  intelligently  of  the  nominee.  This 
was  Stephen  A.  Douglas.     He  was  among  the  first 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

at  the  capital  to  receive  the  news  and  he  was  able 
to  quiet  the  fears  of  his  Republican  associates  h\ 
the  Senate.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said  to  them,  "you 
have  nominated  a  very  able  and  a  very  honest  man." 

Douglas  himself  stood  as  the  candidate  of  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  North,  while  Breckinridge? 
was  the  candidate  of  the  party  in  the  South.  Thus 
divided,  there  was  no  chance  of  success  for  either. 

Lincoln's  election  was  reasonably  certain  from 
the  outset.  He  adopted  at  once  the  policy  of  letting 
well  enough  alone.  Aside  from  his  little  speech 
of  acceptance  and  his  letter  to  the  same  point,  con- 
taining less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  words,  he 
kept  a  strict  silence  throughout  the  campaign  and 
did  not  once  leave  Springfield.  All  the  tempta- 
tions of  vanity  to  parade  himself  or  his  views,  every 
impulse  to  correct  the  misrepresentations  and  mis- 
understandings of  him,  which  were  rife,  he  firmly 
resisted. 

The  canvass  developed  a  good  deal  of  enthusiasm. 
Wide  Awake  Clubs  in  their  picturesque  costumes 
sprang  up  all  over  the  country,  and  their  zigzag 
"rail-fence  march,"  as  it  was  outlined  by  the  blazing 
torches  which  they  bore,  in  honor  of  "Old  Abe, 
the  rail-splitter  of  the  Sangamon,"  was  in  high  favor. 

In  the  election,  Lincoln  received  a  plurality  of 
the  votes  in  every  free  state  and  a  clear  majority 

lS6 


THE   STANDARD   BEARER 


over  all  in  the  electoral  college.  But  in  ten  states 
of  the  South  not  a  ballot  was  cast  for  him.  Thus 
was  made  manifest  the  "house  divided  against 
itself." 

While  the  cheers  of  his  proud  and  happy  towns- 
people filled  the  air  on  election  night,  the  bitter 
anguish  of  the  nation's  jeopardy  was  in  his  heart, 
and  in  his  face  the  shadow  of  his  awful  responsi- 
bility. 


i57 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

PRESIDENT-ELECT 


Lincoln  confronted  at  the  outset  by  a  crisis  in  the  life  of  the  nation. 
—  The  cotton  states  of  the  South  refused  to  abide  by  the  elec- 
tion of  a  northern  man  on  an  antislavery  platform.  —  The 
North  bewildered  by  the  preparations  for  secession.  —  Many 
Northerners  gave  up  the  Union.  —  "Wayward  sisters,  depart 
in  peace. "  —  Lincoln's  beacon  lights.  —  His  firm  stand  for  the 
Union.  —  Men  feared  he  could  not  be  inaugurated  in  Wash- 
ington.—  Parting  from  his  stepmother.  —  Her  gloomy  fore- 
bodings.—  His  property.  —  Obliged  to  borrow  money  for 
White  House  expenses.  —  His  last  visit  to  the  old  law  office. 

The  usual  portion  of  a  President-elect,  the  en- 
joyment of  success  and  the  good  wishes  of  a  united 
people,  was  denied  Lincoln.  Instead,  angry  con- 
fusion reigned  around  him. 

The  leaders  of  the  far  South,  the  cotton  states, 
had  determined  in  advance  not  to  abide  by  the 
election  of  a  northern  man,  standing  on  a  platform 
which  declared  it  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to 
forbid  slavery  in  the  territories.  They,  too,  had 
wearied  of  compromise.  If  they  had  supported 
Douglas  and  his  doctrine  of  "popular  sovereignty," 
Lincoln  could  not  have  been  elected.  They  chose, 
instead,  to  break  with  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
North    and    follow   Breckinridge,   who   had   taken 

ISS 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


his  stand  squarely  against  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment to  set  bounds  to  the  institution  of  slavery. 

As  they  seceded  from  their  party  rather  than 
accept  the  nomination  of  Douglas,  so  now  the  radi- 
cal men  at  the  South  were  ready  to  secede  from  the 
Union  itself  rather  than  accept  the  election  of  Lin- 
coln. South  Carolina,  without  waiting  for  the 
result  of  the  voting,  made  the  first  move  toward 
secession,  and  the  men  of  the  neighboring  states 
gravely  planned  to  join  the  revolt. 

The  booksellers  of  Charleston  rejected  an  edition 
of  Harper  s  Weekly  because  it  contained  a  portrait 
and  sketch  of  the  President-elect,  while  a  paper 
in  that  city  soon  printed  its  Washington  despatches 
under  the  general  headline,  "Foreign  News." 

Most  of  the  people  of  the  North  had  carelessly 
assumed  that  the  threats  of  disunion,  which  they 
had  heard  for  many  months,  were  uttered  only  for 
political  effect.  Now  as  they  saw  grim  preparations 
for  dividing  the  country,  they  were  bewildered.  A 
babel  of  voices  sprang  up  in  the  counsels  of  the  free 
states. 

The  Union  as  a  national  ideal  did  not  yet  inspire 
the  passion  which  all  the  people  have  felt  for  it  since 
it  was  cemented  by  the  best  blood  of  both  the  North 
and  the  South  and  ransomed  from  destruction  by 
the  treasure  poured  forth  with  a  lavish  hand  in  the 

159 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


long  Civil  War.  It  had  been  for  so  many  years  the 
football  of  sectional  politics  that  in  i860  there  were 
many,  alike  in  the  slave  states  and  the  free  states, 
who  held  it  lightly. 

There  were  Republicans,  like  Horace  Greeley, 
who  insisted  on  letting  the  South  go  its  own  wayt 
and  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  argued  that  secession 
would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  North.  The  Aboli- 
tionists cried,  "Let  the  Union  slide,"  and  Winfield 
Scott,  the  venerable  and  patriotic  Lieutenant-general 
of  the  army,  advised  the  Federal  government  to 
say,  "Wayward  sisters,  depart  in  peace."  Seward 
and  a  large  section  of  the  Republicans  turned  with 
hope  to  the  old  policy  of  compromise,  and  not  less 
than  forty  measures,  in  this  spirit,  were  presented  to 
Congress. 

To  the  moral  panic,  a  financial  and  industrial 
panic  was  added.  Banks  suspended,  trade  was 
paralyzed,  and  the  national  treasury  nearly  bank- 
rupt. The  country  seemed  to  stand  on  the  brink 
of  wholesale  disaster.  The  Mayor  of  New  York 
solemnly  called  on  the  city  council  to  consider  the 
advisability  of  the  secession  of  Manhattan  Island 
and  the  establishment  of  the  municipality  as  a  free 
city. 

There  were  signs  in  the  North  of  a  violent  re- 
action   in   sentiment   on   the    question   of  slavery. 

160 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


Again,  a  broadcloth  mob  rose  up  in  Boston  to  dis- 
perse an  Abolition  meeting,  and  one  hundred 
policemen  were  required  for  the  safe  conduct  of 
Wendell  Phillips  through  the  streets  of  that  city. 
Many  Republicans  lamented  the  election  of  Lincoln, 
as  the  cause  of  all  the  distress  which  had  befallen 
the  land. 

Meanwhile  the  President-elect  went  his  silent 
way.  He  continued  to  occupy  the  room  in  the 
State  House  which  he  had  adopted  as  his  office 
at  the  time  of  his  nomination.  Its  door  was  un- 
guarded and  all  could  freely  enter.  Office  seekers 
swarmed  about  him  and  friends  surrounded  him, 
yet  he  dwelt  apart. 

When  he  left  the  telegraph  office  in  which  he 
received  the  returns  on  election  night,  the  frame- 
work of  his  cabinet  was  complete  in  his  mind. 
With  characteristic  self-reliance,  he  acted  wholly  on 
his  own  judgment.  He  did  not  mention  the  subject 
even  to  Herndon.  "He  never  confided  to  me  any 
of  his  purposes,"  said  Judge  David  Davis.  When 
the  time  came  for  him  to  prepare  his  inaugural 
address,  he  withdrew  to  a  room  over  a  store  and 
there  wrote  it  in  solitude. 

It  is  probably  true  that  he  could  look  no  farther 
than  others  into  the  dark  and  troubled  future.  In 
common  with  most  of  the  northern  leaders,  he  shared 
M  i6x 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


the  delusions  of  hope.  The  coming  of  a  great 
war  was  not  foreseen  by  Lincoln.  While,  however, 
he  had  no  set  of  policies  all  made  up  and  ready 
for  the  emergency,  he  had  principles,  and  he  was 
steadfastly  true  to  them.  They  were  his  safe  guide 
in  the  storm,  which  buffeted  other  statesmen  about 
like  corks  in  a  surf.  His  course  was  marked  out 
solely  by  two  ideals,  —  the  Union  and  the  restric- 
tion of  slavery.  These  were  his  beacon  lights, 
and  he  steered  toward  them  with  an  unfaltering 
hand. 

Only  once  since  election  had  his  voice  been  heard 
in  public.  To  those  who  were  celebrating  his 
success,  he  spoke  five  short  sentences,  the  last  of 
which  expressed  the  spirit  of  the  whole,  "Let  us 
at  all  times  remember  that  all  American  citizens 
are  brothers  of  a  common  country,  and  should  dwell 
together  in  the  bonds  of  fraternal  feeling." 

From  every  direction,  demands  came  for  him  to 
speak  or  act,  but  he  resolutely  refrained  from  adding 
to  the  volume  of  idle  sound.  There  was  an  anxious 
desire  all  over  the  country  to  take  the  measure  of 
the  untried  leader.  In  a  letter  to  Senator  Henry 
Wilson  of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Herndon,  Lincoln's 
partner,  drew  this  remarkably  just  portrait:  "Lin- 
coln is  a  man  of  heart,  ay,  as  gentle  as  a  woman's 
and  as  tender  —  but  he  has  a  will  as  strong  as  iron. 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


He,  therefore,  loves  all  mankind,  hates  slavery 
and  every  form  of  despotism.  .  .  . 

"Lincoln  will  fail  here,  namely,  if  a  question 
of  political  economy  —  if  any  question  comes  up 
which  is  doubtful,  questionable,  which  no  man  can 
demonstrate,  then  his  friends  can  rule  him;  but, 
when  on  justice,  right,  liberty,  the  government, 
the  Constitution,  and  the  Union,  then  you  may  all 
stand  aside;  he  will  rule  then,  and  no  man  can 
rule  him  —  no  set  of  men  can  do  it.  There  is  no 
fail  here.  This  is  Lincoln,  and  you  mark  my  pre- 
diction. You  and  I  must  keep  the  people  right; 
God  will  keep  Lincoln  right." 

He  summoned  distinguished  men  to  Springfield, 
and  some  of  them  have  confessed  the  disagreeable 
surprise  they  felt  on  first  beholding  the  new  chieftain. 
As  likely  as  not,  when  they  pulled  the  bell  of  his 
modest  home,  he  himself  in  his  "  snufT-colored  and 
slouchy  pantaloons,  open  black  vest,  held  by  a 
few  brass  buttons,"  would  let  them  in.  While  he 
talked  in  his  quaint  way,  perhaps  his  two  little 
boys  would  clamber  over  him,  poking  their  fingers 
in  his  eyes  and  mouth,  without  reproof  or  even 
notice  from  their  father. 

Through  these  visitors  and  through  confidential 
letters  to  friends,  the  President-elect  put  forth, 
little  by  little,  the  steadying  influence  of  his  own 

163 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


firm  conviction  of  duty.  Leaders  were  inspired  by 
him  to  take  heart  in  the  cause  of  the  Union.  As 
early  as  November  15  he  gave  it  as  his  impression 
that  "the  government  possesses  both  the  authority 
and  the  power  to  maintain  its  integrity.,, 

In  the  midst  of  the  projects  for  patching  up  a  peace, 
the  wavering  in  Washington  received  this  sharp 
warning,  written  on  December  11:  "Entertain  no 
proposals  for  a  compromise  in  regard  to  the  extension 
of  slavery.  The  instant  you  do,  they  have  us  under 
again;  all  our  labor  is  lost  and  sooner  or  later  must 
be  done  over  again.  .  .  .  The  tug  has  to  come, 
and  better  now  than  later."  Two  days  afterward 
came  this  clear  injunction,  "Hold  firm  as  a  chain  of 
steel." 

To  a  famous  and  influential  politician  of  New 
York  he  wrote,  in  this  same  week,  "My  opinion 
is  that  no  state  can,  in  any  way,  lawfully  get  out  of 
the  Union  without  the  consent  of  the  others."  On 
December  21  he  directed  a  friend  in  Washington 
to  present  his  compliments  to  General  Scott  and  to 
"tell  him  confidentially  I  shall  be  obliged  to  him  to 
be  as  well  prepared  as  he  can  to  either  hold  or  re- 
take the  forts  (in  the  seceded  states),  as  the  case 
may  require,  at  and  after  the  inauguration." 

"Is  it  desired,"  he  wrote  a  southern  acquaintance, 
*  that  I  shall  shift  the  ground  upon  which  I  was 

164 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


elected  ?  I  cannot  do  it."  He  would  not  repent 
of  "the  crime  of  having  been  elected,"  and  would 
neither  apologize  nor  beg  forgiveness.  Assuring 
Alexander  H.  Stephens  of  Georgia,  with  whom  he 
served  in  Congress  and  who  was  to  become  the 
Vice-president  of  the  Confederate  states,  that  the 
South  would  be  in  no  more  danger  of  interference 
in  its  affairs  under  his  administration  than  it  was 
under  Washington's,  he  frankly  added,  "I  suppose, 
however,  that  does  not  meet  the  case.  You  think 
slavery  is  right  and  ought  to  be  extended,  while  we 
think  it  is  wrong  and  ought  to  be  restricted.  That, 
I  suppose,  is  the  rub.  It  certainly  is  the  only  sub- 
stantial difference  between  us." 

If  Lincoln  was  able  to  show  forbearance  toward 
the  South,  he  had  no  patience  with  the  frantic  cry 
for  compromise  which  rose  from  men  of  business 
in  the  North,  intent  more  on  profit  than  on  prin- 
ciple. "They  seek  a  sign,"  he  sternly  declared, 
"and  no  sign  shall  be  given  them.  ...  I  am  not 
insensible  to  any  commercial  or  financial  depres- 
sion that  may  exist,  but  nothing  is  to  be  gained 
by  fawning  around  the  'respectable  scoundrels'  who 
got  it  up.  Let  them  go  to  work  to  repair  the  mis- 
chief of  their  own  doing  and  then  perhaps  they 
will  be  less  greedy  to  do  the  like  again." 

Each  day  brought  some  new  menace  to  the  Union, 

165 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


and  it  became  doubtful  if  Lincoln  would  be  inaugu- 
rated in  peace.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  then  Attorney- 
general  of  the  United  States,  said,  toward  the  end  of 
January,  he  did  not  think  it  probable  or  hardly  pos- 
sible that  the  government  would  be  in  Washington 
on  the  fourth  of  March. 

The  seceding  states  were  striving  to  draw  Virginia 
with  them.  If  the  Old  Dominion  could  be  induced 
to  secede,  Maryland  would  be  likely  to  follow  her. 
Thus  the  Federal  capital  would  be  surrounded 
by  secession  states  and  cut  off  from  the  North. 
The  Confederacy  would  make  Washington  its  own 
capital  and  leave  the  new  President  of  the  United 
States  to  set  up  his  government  somewhere  else. 

Moreover,  there  was  a  chance  that  Lincoln's 
election  would  not  be  declared  by  Congress.  The 
Republicans  were  in  a  minority  in  the  Senate,  and 
the  presiding  officer,  whose  duty  it  was  to  open 
the  returns,  was  Vice-president  Breckinridge,  the 
southern  candidate  for  President  who  had  been 
defeated  at  the  polls. 

It  was  feared  under  these  circumstances  that  the 
Vice-president  and  the  unfriendly  majority  in  the 
Senate  would  prevent  the  counting  of  the  votes  and 
the  declaration  of  the  result.  There  was  much 
anxiety  on  this  account,  and  Lincoln  decided  to  stay 
in  Springfield  until  the  question  was  settled.     Happily 

166 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


the  Vice-president  and  the  Senate  discharged  their 
duty  in  an  orderly  manner. 

When  it  became  an  assured  fact  that  the  vote 
would  be  counted,  the  President-elect  was  ready 
to  start  on  his  journey  to  Washington.  With  Mrs. 
Lincoln  he  had  paid  a  brief  visit  to  Chicago,  and 
there  she  bought  for  the  inauguration  the  first  silk 
dress  she  ever  owned.  As  they  were  unpacking 
their  purchases,  after  their  return  home,  the  husband 
remarked:  "Well,  wife,  there  is  one  thing  likely 
to  come  out  of  this  scrape  anyhow.  We  are  going 
to  have  some  new  clothes." 

As  he  was  about  to  leave  Springfield  to  assume 
the  exalted  station  to  which  he  had  been  called,  he 
did  not  forget  the  simple  woman  who  had  brought 
sunshine  into  his  desolate  boyhood,  whose  faithful 
hands  had  clothed  him,  and  who  had  given  him 
a  chance  to  go  to  school  and  learn  his  letters.  His 
good  stepmother  was  still  living,  and  he  was  loyally 
caring  for  her  in  her  old  age. 

He  now  turned  from  his  high  honors  and  heavy 
tasks  to  visit  her  in  her  home.  The  people  came 
out  in  great  crowds  to  cheer  him  on  his  way  to 
his  humble  destination.  When  his  brief  visit  was 
finished,  the  noble  woman  parted  from  him  with 
gloomy  forebodings.  She  feared  his  enemies  would 
kill    him.      In    the   throng    of    old    neighbors    and 

167 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


friends  who  poured  into  his  office  at  the  State 
House  to  bid  him  farewell,  Hannah  Armstrong  came 
from  Clary's  Grove.  She,  too,  was  filled  with  anxiety 
for  his    safety. 

Lincoln  had  found  a  tenant  for  his  house  and 
had  sold  its  furnishings.  This  dwelling,  together 
with  a  piece  of  land  in  Iowa  which  he  had  received 
from  the  government  as  a  reward  for  his  service 
in  the  Black  Hawk  War  and  a  house  lot  in  Lincoln, 
Illinois,  a  town  which  had  been  named  for  him, 
constituted  the  whole  of  his  property.  In  its  entirety 
it  would  have  brought  ten  or  twelve  thousand  dollars. 
He  had  so  little  ready  money,  however,  that  he  was 
forced  to  borrow  in  order  to  pay  his  expenses  in 
the  White  House,  until  he  could  draw  the  first 
quarterly  instalment  of  his  salary  as  President. 

On  his  last  day  in  Springfield  he  went  to  the  old 
law  office  in  the  little  back  room,  where  his  great 
duty  had  found  him,  and  there  stretched  himself  on 
the  well-worn  lounge.  As  he  gazed  up  at  the  dusty 
ceiling,  he  feelingly  recalled  to  his  partner  their 
long  association,  in  which  they  never  had  a  "cross 
word." 

Then  he  referred  in  a  sentimental  vein  to  their 
sign,  which  had  swung  on  its  hinges  until  it  was 
nearly  covered  with  rust,  and  he  asked  "Billy," 
as  he  called  Herndon,  to  let  it  hang  there  until  he 

168 


PRESIDENT-ELECT 


came  back  from  Washington,  and  then  they  would 
go  on  practising  law  just  as  if  he  never  had  been 
President. 

Rising  and  walking  to  the  door,  however,  he  spoke 
of  a  presentiment  that  he  would  not  return  alive. 
Herndon  chided  him  for  his  lack  of  philosophy. 
"But,"  he  insisted,  "it  is  in  keeping  with  my  phi- 
losophy." Turning  away  with  a  mournful  face, 
he  walked  down  the  stairs  and  passed  under  the 
creaking  sign  for  the  last  time. 


169 


CHAPTER  XIX 

GOING   TO   WASHINGTON 


ILincoln's  eloquent  farewell  to  his  Springfield  neighbors,  February 
II,  1861.  —  "Not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I  may  re- 
turn." —  His  journey  eastward.  —  His  greeting  to  a  little  girl, 
at  whose  suggestion  he  had  grown  a  beard.  —  Caricatured  as 
a  sot.  —  Coldly  received  in  New  York.  —  Pleading  for  the 
threatened  Union.  —  His  solemn  pledge  at  Independence  Hall 
on  Washington's  birthday.  —  Warned  of  a  plot  to  murder  him 
as  he  passed  through  Baltimore.  —  Stealing  into  Washington  in 
the  night.  —  His  unexpected  arrival  at  the  capital  at  dawn, 
February  23. 

Lincoln,  standing  on  the  rear  platform  of  his 
special  car  in  the  train  that  was  about  to  bear  him 
away  to  Washington,  lifted  his  hand  as  a  signal  for 
silence.  He  stood  there,  a  solemn  figure,  and  a 
spell  fell  upon  the  neighbors  who  had  gathered 
at  the  Springfield  station  on  a  chill  and  dreary 
February  morning  to  bid  him  farewell. 

He  had  removed  his  hat  and  they,  too,  bared  their 
heads  to  the  falling  snowflakes.  While  he  gazed  at 
them  in  silence  for  several  seconds,  his  lip  quivered 
with  grief  and  there  was  a  tear  on  his  cheek.  When 
at  last  he  had  summoned  the  strength  to  speak,  his 
husky  tone  added  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  few 
tad  words  he  chose  for  the  leave-taking:  — 

190 


GOING   TO   WASHINGTON 


"My  friends,  no  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can 
appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting. 
To  this  place,  and  the  kindness  of  these  people, 
I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have  lived  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old 
man.  Here  my  children  have  been  born,  and  one 
is  buried. 

"I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether 
ever  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me  greater 
than  that  which  rested  upon  Washington.  With- 
out the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever 
attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With  that  assist- 
ance, I  cannot  fail. 

"Trusting  in  Him,  who  can  go  with  me,  and 
remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good, 
let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well. 
To  His  care  commending  you,  as  I  hope  in  your 
prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you  an  affec- 
tionate farewell/ ' 

The  train  pulled  away,  followed  by  the  brimming 
eyes  of  the  people,  and,  until  it  had  disappeared 
from  their  view,  they  could  see  Lincoln,  still  stand- 
ing on  the  platform  of  his  car,  looking  at  the  little 
town  where  fame  had  sought  him  out. 

In  his  young  manhood  he  had  walked  its  streets, 
a  barefoot  law  student.  In  one  of  its  halls  he  had 
sounded  the  warning  that  a  house  divided  against 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


itself  cannot  stand,  and  now  his  was  the  chosen 
hand  to  avert  the  national  calamity  which  he  then 
foretold.  Within  its  limits  was  the  only  home 
that  stood  between  the  log-cabins  of  his  early  days 
and  the  White  House  toward  which  he  was  speed- 
ing. On  the  morrow  he  would  reach  his  fifty-second 
birthday. 

If,  as  he  said,  the  task  laid  upon  him  was  greater 
than  that  which  fell  to  Washington,  with  equal 
truth  he  said  at  another  time  in  the  course  of  his 
journey,  "I  hold  myself,  without  mock  modesty, 
the  humblest  of  all  the  individuals  who  have  been 
elected  President  of  the  United  States."  No  other 
President,  probably  no  chief  of  state  anywhere 
in  the  civilized  world,  has  risen  from  the  social 
depths  in  which  Lincoln's  fortunes  were  cast  by 
the  lottery  of  birth.  No  other  man  clothed  with 
rule  has  embodied  so  completely  the  innumerable 
race  of  common  men. 

Furthermore,  no  other  President  had  ever  been 
elected  with  so  little  known  in  his  favor,  with  so 
slight  a  prestige.  The  country  was  a  stranger 
even  to  his  name  five  years  before.  He  really  had 
been  on  the  national  stage  less  than  three  years. 
The  only  executive  place  he  ever  had  held  was 
the  post-office  of  New  Salem,  which  he  "carried 
in  his  hat."     Since  the  day  when  the  people  were 

172 


GOING   TO   WASHINGTON 


surprised  by  the  news  of  his  nomination  for  Presi- 
dent, he  had  not  made  a  single  appearance  out- 
side of  Springfield,  and  had  not  addressed  in  all 
more  than  three  or  four  hundred  words  to  the  public. 
Naturally  the  people  now  watched  him  with  narrow- 
eyed  curiosity  as  he  emerged  before  them. 

His  tour  lasted  nearly  two  weeks,  and  included 
stops  in  the  principal  cities  on  the  way  to  Washing- 
ton. All  the  simple,  homely  ways  of  the  man  were 
caught  up  and  magnified  or  distorted,  for  men  were 
unused  to  seeing  such  a  figure  as  his  standing  on 
die  heights  of  greatness. 

A  little  girl  had  written  him,  begging  him  to  grow 
a  beard,  because  she  thought  it  would  improve 
his  appearance.  When  he  came  to  the  town  in 
New  York  where  she  lived,  he  called  for  her,  and 
said  as  he  kissed  her,  "You  see,  Grace,  I  have  let 
these  whiskers  grow  for  you."  The  incident  was 
ridiculed  in  the  press,  and  one  paper  carried  its 
report  of  the  day  under  the  flippant  heading,  — 
"Old  Abe  kissed  by  a  pretty  girl." 

The  unusual  blend  of  humor  and  earnestness  in 
Lincoln's  composition  was  new  to  the  nation  at 
large,  and  the  cartoonist  of  the  principal  illustrated 
paper,  having  read  in  the  daily  press  that  Lincoln 
kept  those  around  him  on  his  travels  in  a  contin- 
ual roar,  pictured  this  life-long  foe  of  intemperance 

*73 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


as  a  sot  with  a  whiskey  glass  in  his  hand,  raising 
a  laugh  among  some  drunken  loafers  who  sur- 
rounded him,  while  near  by  stood  a  hearse  bearing 
the  corpse  of  the  Union. 

The  city  of  New  York  received  him  with  cold 
disdain.  Wall  Street  was  charging  the  tottering 
government  ten  and  twelve  per  cent  interest;  the 
Broadway  crowds  were  silent  if  not  sullen  when 
he  passed.  At  the  opera,  where  he  appeared  in 
black  gloves,  an  amused  smile  ran  round  the  boxes. 

The  hearts  of  the  plain  people,  however,  re- 
sponded to  the  one  clear  note  which  he  sounded 
in  all  his  addresses.  Everywhere  he  pleaded  for 
the  threatened  Union,  not  as  a  political  dogma,  nor 
yet  as  a  commercial  asset,  but  as  the  fairest  hope 
that  earth  held  for  the  masses  of  mankind.  Peace 
was  in  his  mind  always,  but  he  aroused  much  en- 
thusiasm in  the  Assembly  of  New  Jersey,  when 
with  a  good  deal  of  vigor  he  said,  "It  may  be  neces- 
sary to  put  the  foot  down  firmly.,, 

The  climax  of  his  appeals  to  patriotism  was  ap- 
propriately reached  when  he  spoke  in  Independence 
Hall  at  Philadelphia,  on  Washington's  birthday. 
"I  have  never  had  a  feeling  politically,"  he  de- 
clared, "that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments 
embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence," 
which  he  held  up  as  the  ideal  of  an  equal  chance  for 

i74 


GOING   TO   WASHINGTON 


all  men,  not  here  alone,  but  throughout  the  world. 
"'If  it  (the  Union)  cannot  be  saved  without  giving 
up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would  rather 
be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender  it." 

He  was  not  delivering  a  prepared  speech.  He 
had  come,  as  he  understood,  merely  to  hoist  the 
flag,  and,  stirred  by  the  great  associations  of  the 
hallowed  hall,  he  spoke  out  of  a  full  heart.  He 
expressed  the  fear  that  he  might  have  been  betrayed 
by  his  emotions  into  saying  something  indiscreet; 
"but,"  he  added,  "I  have  said  nothing  that  I  am 
not  willing  to  live  by,  and  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of 
Almighty  God  to  die  by." 

There  was  one  troublesome  point  on  the  route 
of  the  President-elect's  journey.  To  get  to  the 
capital  he  must  pass  over  the  soil  of  Maryland, 
a  southern  state,  and  rumors  continually  came  to 
the  party  that  the  notorious  "plug  uglies"  of  Bal- 
timore were  preparing  to  mob  him.  Every  op- 
portunity would  be  afforded  riotous  persons  on  such 
an  occasion,  for,  in  those  days,  railway  cars  destined 
for  Washington  were  hauled  by  horses  through  the 
streets  of  Baltimore.  Moreover,  every  other  city 
had  offered  its  hospitality  to  the  President-elect, 
but  no  official  invitation  had  been  received  from 
the  metropolis  of  this  slave  state. 

Allan    Pinkerton,    the    noted    detective,    came  to 

175 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Lincoln  with  the  story  of  a  plot  against  him  in 
Baltimore,  and  Seward  sent  a  messenger  from 
Washington  with  similar  information.  Those  in 
his  party  who  were  closest  to  him  were  consulted. 
On  their  advice  he  decided  to  slip  away  from  Harris- 
burg,  where  he  was  at  the  time,  secretly  return  to 
Philadelphia  on  a  special  train,  and  there  board  the 
regular  night  train  from  New  York  to  Washington. 

He  keenly  felt  the  humiliating  spectacle  which  would 
be  presented  of  the  chosen  chief  of  the  people  steal- 
ing into  their  capital,  as  he  said,  "like  a  thief  in 
the  night."  He  appreciated  the  ridicule  which 
the  step  would  bring  upon  him,  not  only  from  the 
South,  but  from  his  critics  in  the  North.  He  de- 
termined, however,  to  forego  the  vanity  of  display- 
ing his  personal  courage,  rather  than  take  the  least 
risk  of  incurring  the  national  calamity  which  his 
assassination  would  entail. 

In  accordance  with  the  plans  made,  Lincoln  was 
called  from  the  hotel  dining  room  at  six  o'clock  in 
the  evening.  Most  of  those  who  had  accompanied 
him  from  Springfield  were  not  let  into  the  secret. 
He  went  to  his  chamber,  where  he  changed  to  his 
traveling  clothes,  and  where  he  left  his  poor  wife 
to  sob  the  night  away.  She  begged  to  be  permitted 
to  go  with  him,  but  it  was  deemed  best  that  she 
should  stay  behind. 

176 


GOING   TO   WASHINGTON 


Coming  down  from  his  room  with  a  soft  hat  in 
his  pocket  and  a  shawl  over  his  arm,  he  stepped 
into  the  waiting  carriage  of  the  Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania. A  loud  order  was  given  to  the  driver  to 
take  them  to  the  Governors  mansion,  but  when 
the  carriage  was  safely  away  from  the  hotel,  the 
order  was  changed  and  they  were  driven  to  the 
railway,  where  the  train  was  in  readiness.  An 
official  secretly  climbed  a  telegraph  pole  outside 
the  city  and  grounded  the  wires  leading  to  Baltimore, 
so  there  would  be  no  chance  of  any  communication 
of  the  news  in  that  direction. 

At  Philadelphia  the  President-elect  entered  a 
general  sleeping  car  and  went  to  his  section  un- 
recognized. Only  Pinkerton  and  one  other  man 
were  with  him,  the  latter  a  lawyer  of  giant  build 
and  courage  from  the  old  circuit,  Ward  H.  Lamon, 
who  was  loaded  down  with  ugly  weapons. 

The  train  passed  safely  through  sleepy  and  un- 
suspecting Baltimore,  and  at  dawn,  when  it  drew 
into  the  station  at  Washington,  an  Illinois  Congress- 
man stood  behind  a  pillar  scanning  the  passengers 
as  they  came  out  of  their  cars.  Lincoln  and  Lamon 
were  the  last  to  appear,  and,  joined  by  the  Congress- 
man, they  went  into  the  street,  where  they  hired 
a  carriage  like  any  other  strangers.  At  the  hotel 
it  was  some  time  before  the  flurried  attendant* 
*  177 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


could  prepare  suitable  quarters  for  the  unexpected 
guest. 

Meanwhile  the  anxious  and  sleepless  waiters  in 
Harrisburg,  who  had  restored  the  wires  to  working 
order  at  the  hour  when  the  train  was  due  to  arrive 
at  its  destination,  were  relieved  by  the  receipt  of 
this  cipher  message,  "Plums  delivered  nuts  safely." 

The  startling  information  that  the  President-elect 
was  in  the  city  quickly  spread  over  waking  Wash- 
ington, and  was  sped  on  the  telegraph  to  every 
corner  of  the  land.  And  thus  Abraham  Lincoln, 
sixteenth  President  of  the  United  States,  entered 
the  capital  of  the  republic. 


178 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE    INAUGURATION 


Washington,  a  part  of  the  "enemy's  country,"  in  no  welcoming 
mood  toward  Lincoln  and  his  party.  —  The  clamor  of  office 
seekers  and  the  intrigues  of  leaders  filled  the  air.  —  The  struggle 
of  factions  to  dictate  the  choice  of  a  cabinet.  —  "  If  that  slate 
breaks  again,  it  will  break  at  the  top."  —  Seward  resigned, 
but  Lincoln  refused  to  "let  him  take  the  first  trick."  —  Assas- 
sination feared.  —  The  President-elect  driven  from  Willard's 
Hotel  to  the  Capitol,  surrounded  by  soldiers,  March  4,  1861. 
—  A  historic  group.  —  Guarded  by  rifles  and  cannon  while 
taking  the  oath.  —  A  melancholy  ceremony.  —  Lincoln's 
earnest  and  eloquent  plea  for  peace  and  union. 

Washington  received  Lincoln  in  no  welcoming 
mood.  The  Federal  city  really  was  in  the  "enemy's 
country/'  It  was  a  southern  slaveholding  com- 
munity which  hoped  and  believed  the  Northerners 
would  soon  be  driven  out  by  the  secessionists,  whose 
open  emissaries  were  everywhere,  even  in  places 
of  power. 

The  new  party  about  to  be  installed  in  office 
was  a  stranger  to  the  people  of  the  city,  who  were 
mostly  Democrats.  Their  party  had  administered 
the  government  for  nearly  sixty  years  with  slight 
interruption,  and  there  was  a  feeling  that  no  other 
party  was  capable  of  governing  the  country.     Wash- 

m 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ington,  therefore,  frowned  upon  the  eager  Republican 
office  seekers,  largely  wearing  the  manners  and  garb 
of  the  new  West,  as  they  thronged  the  streets  and 
swarmed  the  Capitol  and  the  hotel  lobbies. 

Clamor  and  intrigue  filled  the  air  which  the 
President-elect  breathed,  and  a  faction  fight  raged 
around  him  over  the  formation  of  his  cabinet. 

It  was  generally  believed  that  some  one  of  the 
more  distinguished  Republican  leaders,  or  at  least 
some  group  of  experienced  politicians,  would  control 
this  new  and  inexperienced  man.  Few  dreamed 
that  it  was  to  be  a  Lincoln  administration.  One 
day  it  looked  as  if  Seward  had  captured  the  Presi- 
dent-elect; but  the  next  day  the  Chase  element  or 
some  other  appeared  to  have  gained  the  upper  hand 
of  the  kindly,  simple  man  who  told  stories  to  his 
callers  and  sent  them  away  without  permitting  them 
to  draw  from  him  a  positive  opinion  on  any  subject. 

Finally,  when  an  Illinois  friend  rushed  in  with 
the  rumor  that  the  Seward  faction  had  "broken 
the  cabinet  slate,"  Lincoln  said  firmly,  "If  that 
slate  breaks  again,  it  will  break  at  the  top."  This 
proved  to  be  true.  Seward,  whose  name  was  written 
at  the  top,  failed  in  his  effort  to  dictate  other  ap- 
pointments, and  only  two  days  before  the  inaugura- 
tion sent  the  President-elect  a  letter  declining  to 
accept  the  Secretaryship  of  State. 


THE   INAUGURATION 


Lincoln  made  no  reply  unfil  he  was  about  to  go 
to  the  Capitol  to  be  sworn  in.  Remarking  then  to 
his  private  secretary,  "I  can't  afford  to  let  Seward 
take  the  first  trick,"  he  wrote  urging  him  to  accept 
and  giving  him  two  days  in  which  to  reconsider  his 
refusal.  In  the  end,  the  framework  of  the  cabinet 
stood  as  he  had  constructed  it  in  his  mind  on  elec- 
tion night  in  Springfield. 

On  the  day  of  the  inauguration,  when  the  White 
House  carriage  drew  up  in  front  of  Lincoln's  hotel, 
President  Buchanan,  an  old  man  in  an  old-fashioned 
swallow-tail  coat,  hobbled  out  and  into  the  hoteL 
to  reappear  a  few  minutes  later  with  the  President- 
elect, who  was  dressed  in  a  new  black  suit  and  a 
shining  high  hat,  and  who  carried  in  his  hand  a 
gold-headed  cane.  General  Scott  had  closed  all 
the  liquor  saloons  in  the  city  and  carefully  arranged 
his  small  military  force  to  thwart  any  attempt  at 
assassination  and  to  prevent  disorder  among  the 
thousands  of  hostile  persons  in  the  city,  who  looked 
with  sullen  faces  on  the  transfer  of  the  govern- 
ment. 

The  presidential  carriage  moved  along  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  between  double  files  of  cavalry, 
while  soldiers  marched  in  front  and  behind  it. 
Groups  of  riflemen  were  stationed  on  various  roofs 
which  commanded  the  thoroughfare,  watching  for 

i8r 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


the  slightest  sign  of  hostility,  and  cavalrymen 
guarded  every  approach  to  the  avenue  by  side 
streets. 

A  feeling  of  relief  was  manifest  in  both  houses 
of  Congress  when  it  was  known  the  journey  had 
been  made  without  trouble,  and  that  Lincoln  had 
arrived  at  the  Capitol. 

Shortly  after  twelve  o'clock  the  President  and  the 
President-elect  appeared  at  the  eastern  front,  in 
the  sight  of  the  waiting  thousands  on  the  broad 
esplanade.  Overhead,  ugly  derricks  hung  about 
the  yet  unfinished  dome,  while  the  great  bronze 
statue  of  Freedom  still  stood  on  the  ground  biding 
the  time  when  it  should  be  swung  into  its  lofty  place 
above  and  crown  the  completed  Capitol.  A  battal- 
ion of  soldiers  was  drawn  up  near  the  steps,  and  from 
the  windows,  riflemen  scanned  the  scene  with  vigi- 
lant eyes,  while  a  battery  of  flying  artillery  was 
posted  in  the  rear  of  the  crowd. 

As  Lincoln  stepped  to  the  place  where  he 
was  to  be  invested  with  his  stupendous  respon- 
sibilities to  his  country  and  mankind,  he  was  the 
center  of  a  remarkable  group  of  historical  char- 
acters. 

Within  reach  of  his  arm  stood  the  President, 
James  Buchanan,  about  to  pass  into  retirement 
after   forty   years   of  distinguished    public   service; 

182 


THE   INAUGURATION 


Roger  B.  Taney,  the  learned  and  venerable  Chief- 
justice,  from  whose  Dred  Scott  decision  Lincoln 
had  made  his  successful  appeal  to  the  nation; 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  witness  here  to  the  final 
victory  of  his  life-long  rival;  John  C.  Breckinridge, 
another  defeated  candidate  for  President  in  the 
recent  contest,  who  but  a  few  minutes  before  had 
laid  down  the  gavel  of  the  Vice-president,  and  who 
ere  many  months  would  be  in  arms  against  the 
Union;  finally,  William  H.  Seward,  who  was  con- 
soling himself  for  the  loss  of  the  Presidency  with 
the  hope  that  he  might  become  the  master  of  this 
novice,  whom  the  Chicago  Convention  had  strangely 
preferred  to  him. 

Still  another  interesting  figure  was  there,  a  man 
of  striking  appearance,  who  waved  his  outspread 
hands,  and  with  a  peculiar  pride  in  his  bearing 
introduced  to  the  people  Abraham  Lincoln  as  the 
President-elect  of  the  United  States.  This  was 
E.  D.  Baker,  now  a  Senator  from  Oregon,  but 
formerly  one  of  that  coterie  of  budding  statesmen 
who  gathered  in  front  of  the  open  fire  in  the  store 
over  which  Lincoln  slept  in  the  early  days  of  his 
life  in  Springfield  —  the  ambitious  youth  who  wept 
over  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  when  he 
learned  from  it  that  a  native  of  England  like  him- 
self could  not  aspire  to  the  Presidency. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


As  Lincoln  moved  forward  to  begin  his  address, 
only  a  faint  cheering  greeted  him  from  his  half- 
unfriendly  audience.  Removing  his  brilliant  new 
silk  hat,  he  was  seeking  a  resting  place  for  it,  when 
Douglas  stretched  forth  his  hand  and  took  it  and 
held  it  throughout  the  ceremony.  By  this  simple 
but  dramatic  act  of  courtesy,  the  Democratic  leader 
of  the  North  signalized  alike  to  the  friends  and  to 
the  enemies  of  the  Union  his  readiness  to  serve  and 
sustain  the  new  President  in  the  crisis  which  con- 
fronted him. 

All  the  exultant  joyousness  of  an  inauguration 
was  missing  from  Lincoln's.  Like  his  childhood, 
like  his  boyhood,  like  his  young  manhood,  like  his 
love  and  marriage,  his  inaugural  day  must  be  tinged 
with  melancholy  and  clouded  with  forebodings  of 
evil.  Every  other  President  had  received  his  great 
honor  from  a  united  country.  It  came  to  him 
from  a  Union  torn  by  discord  and  broken  by  seces- 
sion. 

Each  of  his  predecessors  could  cheer  himself 
with  the  hope  that  he  might  have  the  happy  fortune 
to  hand  down  the  shield  of  the  nation  with  an  added 
star.  With  Lincoln,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  a  very 
different  question.  How  many  stars  must  he  lose 
and  how  many  could  he  save,  was  the  heart-wracking 
problem  with  which  he  grappled  as  he  stood  there 

184 


THE   INAUGURATION 


on  the  steps  of  the  Capitol  registering  in  Heaven, 
as  he  said,  a  solemn  oath  to  preserve,  protect,  and 
defend  the  Constitution  and  the  Union. 

Breasting  the  surging  tide  of  secession,  he  reasoned 
with  the  South  in  a  spirit  of  calmness  and  fairness. 
Though  they  might  leave  the  Union,  he  reminded 
the  southern  people,  the  North  and  the  South  still 
would  have  to  dwell  together,  side  by  side,  face  to 
face.  Physically  the  sections  could  not  separate; 
no  wall  could  be  reared  between  them.  The  two 
peoples,  he  argued,  could  get  along  better  as  fellow- 
citizens  bound  by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws, 
than  as  aliens  living  together  under  treaties.  He 
implored  the  discontented  not  to  act  in  haste.  The 
government  would  not  assail  them;  there  could 
be  no  conflict  unless  they  brought  it  on.  "In  your 
hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,"  he  told 
them,  "and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue 
of  civil  war." 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  eloquent  passages 
xO  be  found  in  the  pages  of  oratory  brought  to  its 
climax  this  great  plea  for  peace  and  union :  — 

"I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but 
friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion 
may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of 
affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretch- 
ing from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


living  heart  and  hearth-stone  all  over  this  broad 
land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when 
again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better 
angels  of  our  nature." 


186 


CHAPTER  XXI 

CALLED   TO   THE    HELM   IN   A   STORM 


Seven  states  in  secession,  and  seven  more  on  the  verge  of  it.  — 
The  North  itself  divided.  —  A  month  crowded  with  hopes 
and  fears.  —  The  inner  Lincoln  keeping  his  own  counsel, 
while  the  outer  man  in  good-humored  patience  bore  with  the 
wild  scramble  for  office.  —  The  White  House  mobbed  by  place 
hunters.  —  Charles  Francis  Adams  shocked  by  the  President. 
—  Seward  convinced  of  Lincoln's  unfitness  for  his  great  task, 
boldly  proposed,  April  I,  1861,  that  the  President  relinquish 
his  powers  and  responsibilities.  —  A  masterful  reply.  —  The 
Cabinet  on  March  15  advised  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter, 
but  finally,  on  March  29,  agreed  with  the  President  that  it 
should  be  provisioned.  —  Lincoln's  sleepless  night.  —  His  or- 
ders to  General  Scott.  —  Expedition  to  reenforce  Fort  Pickens, 
Florida,  sailed  April  6.  —  Ships  bearing  provisions  for  Fort 
Sumter,  South  Carolina,  sailed  from  New  York  April  9. 

With  a  heavy  heart,  Lincoln  entered  the  White 
House  under  an  angry  sky.  Other  Presidents  have 
lightly  stepped  across  its  threshold  as  to  the  sun- 
lit summit  of  their  ambition.  He  had  not  sought 
it;  he  never  had  aspired  to  it.  The  Presidency 
came  to  him,  not  as  a  prize  to  be  enjoyed,  but  as 
a  cross  to  be  borne.  As  Emerson  said,  he  was  sent 
to  the  helm  in  a  tornado. 

The  bravest  well  might  shrink  from  a  burden 
such  as  his.    Seven  states  —  South  Carolina,  Georgia, 

187 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Alabama,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Florida,  and  Texas 
—  had  already  declared  their  separation  from  the 
Union  and  set  up  the  government  of  a  new  repub- 
lic at  Montgomery  under  the  Presidency  of  Jeffer- 
son Davis. 

Their  senators  and  representatives  had  withdrawn 
from  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  The  Fed- 
eral courts  had  been  suspended  among  them,  and  the 
stars  and  stripes  hauled  down  from  the  flagstafFs 
of  the  Federal  buildings  within  their  borders,  while 
officers  in  the  army  were  daily  resigning  their  com- 
missions to  "go  with  their  states/'  for  had  they 
not  been  taught  from  the  text-books  at  West  Point 
that  secession  was  right  ?  Meanwhile  seven  other 
slave  states  were  wavering  between  union  and  dis- 
union. 

Public  opinion  at  the  North  also  was  confused 
and  divided.  No  one  knew  how  to  compel  a  state 
by  force  of  arms  to  stay  in  the  Union,  to  keep  its 
senators  and  representatives  in  their  seats  in  Con- 
gress, to  provide  jurors  for  the  Federal  courts,  and 
to  pei  form  generally  its  simple  duties  under  the 
national  government.  All  the  northern  people 
dreaded  war,  and  hesitated  to  take  any  step  that 
would  bring  on  an  armed  conflict. 

Lincoln  kept  his  own  counsel  through  all  this 
soul-torturing    struggle.     "I    never    knew    him     to 

188 


CALLED  TO  THE  HELM  IN  A  STORM 

ask  advice  about  anything,"  an  associate  on  the 
old  circuit  has  said,  and  now  in  meeting  the  gravest 
responsibility  that  ever  fell  to  a  President,  he  relied 
on  his  own  sense  of  right  and  duty. 

Again,  as  in  every  hour  of  trial,  the  inner  Lincoln 
walked  alone;  the  outer  man  good-naturedly  shuffled 
along  through  the  routine  of  the  day's  work  as  if 
free  from  any  heavier  care.  When  Senator  Sherman 
introduced  his  brother,  William  T.,  who  had  lately 
resigned  as  military  instructor  in  a  Louisiana  college 
and  who  was  full  of  the  news  of  the  preparation  for 
war  which  the  South  was  making,  the  latter  was 
amazed  by  Lincoln's  flippant  reply,  "Oh,  well! 
I  guess  we'll  manage  to  keep  house  and  get 
along  without  you  soldier-fellows."  How  much  the 
President  was  deluding  himself  with  false  hopes  of 
peace,  and  how  much  he  was  disguising  his  fears 
of  war,  his  callers  could  not  tell. 

He  listened  with  smiling  patience  to  the  stories 
of  the  petty  ambitions  of  office  seekers,  and  turned 
away  senators  and  representatives  hungry  for  patron- 
age, with  homely  jokes  aptly  applied  to  the  case 
of  each.  The  country  never  has  seen  such  another 
ugly  scramble  for  spoils  as  raged  then  when  the 
nation  was  in  its  death  throes.  "I  am  like  a  man," 
Lincoln  said,  "who  is  busy  letting  rooms  in  one  end 
of  his  house  while  the  other  end  is  afire." 

189 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


The  prize  of  public  office  was  now  within  reach 
of  the  Republicans  for  the  first  time,  and  they  lost 
their  heads  in  a  wild  stampede  for  the  loaves  and 
fishes.  "The  grounds,  halls,  stairways,  and  closets 
of  the  White  House,''  Seward  said  in  a  letter  to  his 
wife,  "are  filled  with  applicants."  One  long  line 
moved  in  as  another  long  line  moved  out.  They 
swaggered  about  the  house  with  the  air  of  proprie- 
torship, and  threatened  the  doorkeepers  who  tried 
to  restrain  them. 

Whenever  the  door  to  Lincoln's  room  opened 
for  a  second,  they  rushed  toward  it  merely  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  him.  As  the  place  was  then  arranged, 
the  President  could  not  pass  from  his  office  to  the 
dining  room  or  to  his  sleeping  chamber  without 
forcing  his  way  through  this  noisy,  jostling  crowd. 
To  get  a  drink  of  water,  he  must  expose  himself 
to  their  clamor.  Watching  for  these  chances,  the 
importunate  regularly  waylaid  him,  stuffing  their 
applications  and  indorsements  in  his  hand,  or  whis- 
pering their  wants  in  his  ear  as  he  indulgently 
paused  and  inclined  his  head. 

When,  in  order  to  get  a  breath  of  fresh  air,  he 
went  to  drive  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  men  ran  out  to  his 
carriage  and  tossed  their  papers  in  his  lap.  Even  as 
he  was  walking  in  the  street,  he  was  stopped  by 
a  job  hunter.     "No,  no,"  Lincoln  said  with  a  wave 

iqo 


CALLED  TO  THE  HELM  IN  A  STORM 

» 

of  his  hand,  "I  won't  open  shop  here."  He  com- 
plained to  a  friend  of  the  hunger  for  office  which 
afflicted  mankind,  but  with  his  inveterate  sense  of 
humor  and  fairness,  he  admitted  he  himself  was  not 
exempt  from  this  appetite. 

He  was  always  practical.  He  knew  how  men  were 
reached,  and  he  felt  it  would  strengthen  him  and  his 
new  administration  to  satisfy  this  appetite  for  place 
as  well  as  he  could.  He  bore  it  as  a  duty,  with  a 
cheerfulness  that  was  severely  taxed,  but  which 
seldom  failed. 

One  day  Secretary  Seward  took  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  the  newly  appointed  minister  to  England, 
to  see  the  President.  Adams  was  about  to  leave 
on  his  important  mission  to  London,  and  was 
anxious  to  receive  his  instructions.  As  he  sat  in 
the  White  House,  there  came  to  his  mind  the  im- 
posing dignity  of  his  father's  figure,  when  John 
Quincy  Adams  presided  over  the  mansion,  and 
while  his  thought  was  dwelling  upon  it,  Lincoln, 
"a  tall,  large-featured,  shabbily  dressed  man,  of 
uncouth  appearance,  slouched  into  the  room," 
his  "much-kneed,  ill-fitting  trousers,  coarse  stock- 
ings, and  worn  slippers"  at  once  catching  the  exact- 
ing eye  of  the  descendant  of  two  Presidents. 

Recovering  from  the  shock  as  well  as  he  could, 
the  Minister  politely  thanked  the  President  for  the 

191 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


honor  he  had  done  him  in  selecting  him  for  a  post 
so  delicate.  Lincoln  acknowledged  his  thanks  care- 
lessly, and  then,  stretching  out  his  legs  and  clasping 
his  hands  behind  his  head,  he  dropped  Adams 
from  his  attention,  and  said  to  Seward,  "Well, 
Governor,  I've  this  morning  decided  that  Chicago 
post-office  appointment." 

An  Adams  was  no  more  to  Lincoln  than  any 
other  son  of  Adam.  In  his  native,  unaffected 
democracy  he  could  not  feel  an  awe  or  a  reverence 
for  any  human  being,  however  high  his  station  or 
however  long  his  lineage.  It  was  not  his  habit  to 
look  up  at  one  man  and  look  down  upon  another. 
He  saw  all  men,  the  honored  and  the  unhonored, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  on  a  common  level  with 
himself. 

As  for  attempting  to  instruct  the  Minister  to 
England  in  his  duties  as  a  diplomat,  or  discussing 
the  possible  future  relations  between  this  country 
and  Great  Britain,  he  would  not  cross  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  until  he  came  to  it.  Adams,  therefore,  went 
out  from  his  presence  for  the  last  time,  to  carry 
with  him  through  alf  his  trials  at  the  British  capital 
and  even  to  his  grave,  the  impression  of  an  ill- 
dressed,  ignorant  chief,  without  a  soul  above  office 
seekers. 

As  the  members  of  his  Cabinet  and  other  leaders 

192 


CALLED  TO  THE  HELM  IN  A  STORM 

came  and  went,  watching  and  measuring  the  simple- 
mannered  President  with  no  official  airs  about  him, 
standing  up  under  all  this  pulling  and  hauling  as 
if  he  enjoyed  it,  they  were  puzzled  if  not  disheartened 
by  the  sight.  They  saw  the  chieftain  of  the  dis- 
membered Union,  in  whose  hands  the  life  of  the 
nation  lay,  and  upon  whom  the  searching  eye  of 
Europe  rested,  laughing  and  jesting  as  he  parceled 
out  post-offices,  seemingly  without  a  thought  for 
anything  except  these  trifles. 

Among  them  Lincoln  did  not  have  one  old  friend, 
one  man  who  had  known  him  a  year  before.  For 
the  purpose  of  consolidating  his  party,  he  had  ap- 
pointed all  his  rivals  for  the  nomination  in  the 
Chicago  Convention,  and  had  not  reserved  for  him- 
self even  one  personal  selection.  The  conviction 
grew  among  these  strangers  at  his  council  table 
that  some  one  else  than  Lincoln  must  save  the 
Union. 

Seward,  as  the  head  of  the  Cabinet  and  as  the 
great  leader  of  his  party,  was  emboldened  to  take 
upon  himself  the  task  which  he  felt  his  chief  was 
slighting.  After  four  weeks  he  submitted  to  him 
in  writing  a  proposal  such  as  no  other  President 
in  history  has  had  the  humiliation  to  receive. 

In  this  elaborate  paper  the  Secretary  of  State 
calmly  announced  to  Lincoln  that  the  administra- 

o  193 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


tion  had  drifted  without  a  policy  until  its  negligence 
had  become  a  scandal  and  a  peril.  He  broadly 
hinted,  therefore,  that  the  President  should  turn  the 
entire  matter  over  to  him,  and  that  he  be  permitted 
to  evacuate  Fort  Sumter,  adopt  a  vigorous  foreign 
policy,  demand  explanations  from  Great  Britain 
and  Russia,  send  agents  into  Canada,  Mexico,  and 
Central  America  to  rouse  them  against  Europe,  and 
finally  to  get  up  a  war  with  France  and  Spain 
if  the  governments  of  those  two  countries  refused 
to  apologize  for  things  they  were  supposed  to  be 
doing  in  violation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  By 
these  means  it  was  hoped  that  the  slavery  question 
would  be  obscured,  and  the  South  in  its  awakened 
patriotism  would  join  with  the  North  in  fighting 
foreign  foes. 

Lincoln  met  this  extraordinary  situation  like 
a  strong  man.  He  realized  that  his  Cabinet  was  in 
danger  of  going  to  pieces,  and  that  the  resignation 
of  his  leading  adviser  would  cause  a  heavy  loss  in 
public  confidence.  Without  the  least  show  of 
wounded  feelings,  without  betraying  the  slightest 
passion,  he  brushed  aside  Seward's  proposals  with 
a  firm  yet  gentle  hand.  He  wrote  to  him  at  once, 
pointing  out  briefly  and  calmly  that  he  had  steadily 
followed  the  course  laid  down  in  his  inaugural, 
and  he  added  in  a  tone  of  quiet,  confident  command 

194 


CALLED  TO  THE  HELM  IN  A  STORM 

»■         —  '     ■   *■"*   "|"  ■ "  ■ 

that  whatever  was  to  be  done  by  the  administration, 
"I  must  do  it,"  and  "upon  points  arising  in  its 
progress  I  wish  and  suppose  I  am  entitled  to  have 
the  advice  of  all  the  Cabinet." 

Seward  had  made  the  test,  no  doubt  with  motives 
entirely  patriotic,  and  had  found  his  master,  whom 
he  thenceforth  served  with  a  generous  loyalty  that 
knew  no  shade  of  turning.  "Executive  force  and 
vigor,"  he  wrote  to  his  wife  only  a  few  weeks  after- 
ward, "are  rare  qualities.  The  President  is  the 
best  of  us." 

When  Lincoln  was  inaugurated,  the  flag  of  the 
Union  was  still  flying  above  Fort  Sumter  in  the 
harbor  of  Charleston,  but  under  the  guns  of  a  Con- 
federate battery  which  had  been  set  up  on  the  shore. 
He  came  to  his  desk  after  his  first  night  in  the  White 
House,  to  find  lying  upon  it  a  report  that  the  loyal 
garrison  of  soldiers  who  were  maintaining  the  flag 
had  food  for  only  a  limited  number  of  days. 

He  sent  for  Lieutenant-general  Scott,  who  shook 
his  head  sadly  and  said  that  the  little  band  of  de- 
fenders must  surrender.  To  send  them  provisions 
through  Charleston,  an  army  of  twenty  thousand 
men  would  be  required  to  fight  their  way.  To 
provision  them  by  sea  was  impracticable. 

This  was  the  awful  choice  presented  to  the  Presi- 
dent.    He  must  haul   down  the  flag  and  abandon 

i95 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


before  the  world  the  seven  seceded  states,  or  call 
the  nation  to  arms  in  a  civil  war.  If  the  sentiment 
of  the  North  was  not  ready  to  resort  to  force,  the 
sentiment  of  the  southern  states  which  clung  to  the 
Union  was  unanimously  opposed  to  such  a  measure. 
Any  blow  struck  at  the  South,  it  was  feared,  would 
unite  all  the  states  of  that  section  in  a  common 
defence. 

Lincoln  submitted  the  question  to  his  cabinet, 
the  gravest  ever  presented  to  that  body,  and  nearly 
all  its  members  advised  him  to  give  up  Fort  Sumter. 
Only  one  among  them  recommended  that  an  effort 
be  made  to  provision  it.  The  President  himself 
felt  that  to  order  its  evacuation  would  be  "utterly 
ruinous"  and  that  "it  would  be  our  national 
destruction  consummated." 

Almost  alone,  however,  he  could  only  grope  along 
his  course.  He  did  not  know  the  way,  and  there 
seemed  to  be  no  one  who  could  tell  him.  Day 
after  day  he  anxiously  discussed  the  subject  with 
officers  of  the  army  and  the  navy.  On  every  hand 
there  was  irresolution. 

Finally,  General  Scott  counseled  him  to  give  up 
still  another  fort,  which  was  situated  on  the  coast 
of  Florida.  This  filled  him  with  concern.  "Lin* 
coin's  eyes  did  not  close  in  sleep  that  night,"  his 
secretaries,  Nicolay  and  Hay,  have  recorded  in  their 

196 


CALLED  TO  THE  HELM  IN  A  STORM 

*  1 1 1  .1    ■        ■  i   ■  "■  <«* 

history.  He  watched  by  the  rended  Union,  his 
precious  charge,  in  its  mortal  crisis  as  the  shadow 
of  dissolution  lay  upon  it.  The  morning  found  him 
fixed  in  his  determination  to  save  it. 

Several  of  his  cabinet,  appalled  by  the  added 
sacrifice  which  they  were  called  upon  to  make, 
turned  from  their  yielding  mood  and  strengthened 
his  hands  to  resist  the  surrender  of  the  forts.  The 
plans  which  he  had  been  debating  for  provisioning 
Sumter  were  vigorously  pushed,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  ordered  General  Scott  to  despatch  a  suffi- 
cient force  to  defend  the  Florida  fort. 

"Sir,"  the  old-fashioned  soldier  replied,  as  he 
rose  and  stood  erect,  "the  great  Frederick  used  to 
say,  'When  the  king  commands,  all  things  are 
possible.'     It  shall  be  done." 


197 


CHAPTER  XXII 


"and  the  war  came" 


Fort  Sumter  fired  on,  April  12,  1861,  and  surrendered  to  the  Con- 
federates, April  14.  —  The  North  awakened  by  the  assault  on 
the  flag.  —  Douglas  standing  for  the  Union  beside  his  old-time 
rival.  —  Lincoln's  call  for  an  extra  session  of  Congress  and 
75,000  volunteers,  April  15. — A  quick  response  from  the  free 
states.  —  Lincoln's  offer  of  the  command  of  the  Union  army 
to  Robert  E.  Lee,  April  18.  —  Resignation  of  southern  army 
officers.  —  The  Sixth  Massachusetts  Regiment  mobbed  in  the 
streets  of  Baltimore,  April  19.  —  Washington  cut  off  and  in  peril. 
—  Lincoln's  anxious  week,  waiting  for  the  defenders  of  the 
capital.  —  Dependent  on  untried  officials.  —  His  first  diplo- 
matic experience.  —  Revising  Seward's  imprudent  despatch 
to  London,  May  21.  —  Death  of  Douglas,  June  3.  — The  two 
armies  in  their  first  battle  at  Bull  Run,  July  21.  — The  rout  of 
the  Union  forces.  —  Lincoln's  calmness  and  courage. 

"Both  parties  deprecated  war;  but  one  of  them 
would  make  war  rather  than  let  the  nation  survive; 
and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let  it 
perish.     And  the  war  came."  —  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  shell  from  the  Confederate  battery  at  Charles- 
ton which  tore  a  path  of  fire  across  the  gray  sky 
of  an  April  dawn,  marked  the  opening  scene  in  the 
tragedy  of  the  great  war  between  the  states.  Wild 
cheers  rang  from  the  crowded  shore,  and  when  the 
earliest  rays  of  the  sun  gleamed  on  the  folds  of 

toS 


AND   THE   WAR   CAME 


Sumter's  flag,  there  was  not  a  friendly  eye  to  greet 
it  frcm  the  mainland.  Out  at  the  mouth  of  the 
harbor  the  two  relief  ships  which  Lincoln  had 
despatched  with  food,  stood  helpless  spectators 
of  the  one-sided  duel,  having  arrived  too  late  to 
succor  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  men  of 
the  devoted  garrison.  Their  coming  had  been  but 
the   signal   for   the   attack. 

All  through  the  hours  of  that  evil  Friday,  the 
guns  of  Charleston  rained  their  hissing  iron  upon 
the  island  fort,  and  the  startling  echoes  of  their 
sullen  boom  rolled  over  the  land.  The  hesitant 
North  sprang  to  its  feet  with  clenched  fists.  The 
people  of  the  free  states  felt  that  their  efforts  to  avoid 
a  fight  had  been  mistaken  for  cowardice. 

Parties  and  factions  were  fused  in  a  fiery  glow 
of  patriotism.  Argument  was  hushed;  doctrines 
and  dogmas  were  forgotten.  The  sordid  calcula- 
tions of  trade  were  banished  from  mind.  Men  for 
the  first  time  learned  from  their  quickened  heart- 
beats how  precious  to  them  was  the  imperiled 
Union.  The  flag  now  assailed,  was  drawn  from 
its  long  neglect  and  unfurled  by  loyal  hands  from 
thousands  of  windows.     The  nation  awoke. 

In  Washington,  the  leaders  swarmed  to  the  White 
House  and  were  steadied  by  Lincoln's  coolness. 
They  found  him  grave,  but  not  cast  down.     With- 

199 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


out  bluster  or  boastfulness,  he  was  confidently 
turning  to  the  need  of  the  hour.  The  cabinet  met, 
and,  like  the  North,  it  was  no  longer  divided,  although 
its  members  did  not  agree  as  to  the  seriousness  of 
the  situation.  Seward  predicted  the  trouble  would 
all  be  over  in  three  months. 

For  two  days  the  bombardment  of  Sumter  con- 
tinued, and  then  while  the  fort  was  in  flames,  its 
gallant  commander  sadly  capitulated.  With  the 
honors  of  war,  he  was  permitted  to  march  his  men 
out  on  Sunday  and  embark  them  on  one  of  the 
relief  ships. 

Douglas  went  to  the  White  House  Sunday  even- 
ing and  was  with  Lincoln  two  hours.  He  read  the 
proclamation  which  the  President  had  prepared 
for  publication  on  Monday,  convoking  Congress 
in  extra  session  on  the  fourth  of  July,  and  calling 
into  the  army  seventy-five  thousand  volunteers.  His 
only  objection  to  it,  he  said,  was  that  it  did  not 
call  for  two  hundred  thousand  men.  The  press 
of  the  country  the  next  morning  printed  Lincoln's 
proclamation  and  Douglas's  pledge  of  support  side 
by  side.  As  a  still  further  service  to  the  Union, 
the  loyal  leader  of  the  northern  democracy  went 
at  once  to  Illinois,  delivering  patriotic  speeches  n 
the  way. 

The  two  houses  of  the  Legislature  met  together 

200 


AND   THE  WAR   CAME 


at  Springfield  to  receive  his  counsel.  "There  can  be 
no  neutrals  in  this  war ;  only  patriots  and  traitors/' 
was  the  inspiring  watchword  which  he  sounded, 
while  the  veins  of  his  neck  and  forehead  swelled 
with  the  passion  that  possessed  him.  He  labored 
on  in  the  cause  until  sickness  overtook  him.  As  he 
lay  dying  in  his  home  in  Chicago,  the  air  was  vibrant 
with  the  footfalls  of  his  old-time  followers,  responding 
to  his  last  appeal  and  marching  forth  to  the  defence 
of  the  nation  under  the  leadership  of  Lincoln. 

The  North  eagerly  met  the  President's  call.  In 
twenty-four  hours  a  Massachusetts  regiment  was 
at  the  doors  of  Faneuil  Hall,  and  in  forty-eight 
hours  the  men  of  the  Old  Bay  State,  which  was 
first  in  the  Revolution,  were  in  the  van  of  the  host 
that  hastened  to  the  rescue  of  the  capital.  The 
drum-beat  of  the  Union  resounded  from  every  village 
green.  Warriors  thronged  the  paths  of  peace. 
Women  wept  and  prayed  and  worked  for  their 
country's  defenders. 

The  great  wave  of  emotion  for  the  Union,  however, 
beat  against  the  Mason  and  Dixon  line  as  upon 
a  foreign  shore.  Not  one  of  the  slave  states  obeyed 
the  call.  The  Governor  of  Delaware,  while  refus- 
ing to  organize  and  forward  any  troops,  did  yield  to 
the  President's  proclamation  so  far  as  to  suggest 
that  those  who  wished  to  volunteer  might  offer  their 

201 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


services  directly  to  the  Federal  government.  Mary- 
land demanded  that  no  Union  soldiers  be  brought 
across  her  soil. 

The  Governor  of  Lincoln's  native  state  replied, 
"Kentucky  will  furnish  no  troops  for  the  wicked 
purpose  of  subduing  her  sister  southern  states," 
while  the  Governor  of  Missouri  declared  to  the 
President,  "Not  one  man  will  Missouri  furnish  to 
carry  on  such  an  unholy  crusade. " 

All  the  states  farther  south  rushed  into  the  Con- 
federacy, until  its  flag  was  entitled  to  bear  eleven 
stars  in  its  union  of  blue,  and  Jefferson  Davis's  Secre- 
tary of  War  boasted  it  would  wave  over  the  Capitol 
at  Washington  in  a  few  weeks.  A  full  third  of  the 
officers  of  the  regular  army  and  half  of  the  officers 
of  the  navy  went  with  the  South.  Notable  among 
the  soldiers  lost  by  this  defection  were  Robert  E. 
Lee,  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston, 
Jubal  A.  Early,  Pemberton,  A.  P.  Stewart,  Braxton 
Bragg,  Pickett,  Beauregard,  J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  A.  P. 
Hill,  and  Joseph  Wheeler. 

Men  like  these  were  of  the  flower  of  the  army. 
Lee  was  marked  out  by  General  Scott  to  command 
the  Union  forces.  He  sat  by  the  lofty  columns  of  the 
portico  of  his  Arlington  home,  with  the  walls  of  the 
Capitol  and  the  yet  unfinished  shaft  of  marble  reared 
to  the  memory  of  Washington,  the  greatest  of  the  Vir* 

202 


AND   THE   WAR   CAME 


ginians,  before  his  eyes,  while  his  undoubted  love  for 
the  Union  and  his  dread  of  drawing  his  sword  against 
his  native  state  painfully  struggled  for  the  mastery. 
Virginia  won  him.  He  resigned  from  the  army  and 
offered  his  services  to  the  Governor  at  Richmond. 

Not  all  saw  their  duty  in  the  same  light.  Scott, 
Thomas,  and  Farragut  were  among  the  Southerners 
who  stood  at  their  posts  against  every  temptation. 
When  the  offer  to  make  him  the  commander  of  her 
troops  came  to  Scott  from  Virginia,  the  state  in 
which  he  was  born,  the  old  general  replied,  "I  have 
served  my  country  under  the  flag  of  the  Union  for 
more  than  fifty  years,  and  as  long  as  God  permits 
me  to  live,  I  will  defend  that  flag  with  my  sword, 
even  if  my  own  native  state  assails  it." 

Lincoln  took  special  pride  in  the  report  that  not 
a  private  in  the  little  army  of  sixteen  thousand 
regulars  forsook  the  colors.  This  force  was  so 
widely  scattered,  however,  as  to  be  of  little  use  in 
the  opening  days  of  the  war,  when  there  were  not 
soldiers  enough  in  Washington  to  form  a  safe  body- 
guard for  the  President  in  the  White  House,  which 
stood  on  southern  soil  and  only  across  the  Potomac 
River  from  the  Confederate  state  of  Virginia.  When 
Sumter  was  fired  on,  all  except  six  hundred  soldiers 
of  the  regular  army  were  guarding  the  distant  frontier 
from  the  Indians. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Even  before  open  hostilities  began,  double  sentries 
were  placed  in  the  shrubbery  of  the  White  House 
grounds  at  night,  and  a  small  guard  camped  in  the 
basement  of  the  mansion.  With  the  fall  of  Sumter, 
the  capital  was  in  dire  need  of  defenders.  There 
was  gathered  in  Charleston  alone  a  Confederate 
army  which  could  be  transported  to  Washington  by 
rail  in  two  days,  and  which  was  quite  strong  enough 
to  seize  the  city.  The  volunteers  in  the  eastern 
states,  therefore,  were  despatched  to  the  defence 
of  the  capital. 

Washington  was  connected  with  the  North  by 
only  one  line  of  railway,  running  through  Mary- 
land. While  a  Massachusetts  regiment  was  crossing 
Baltimore  in  cars  drawn  by  horses,  as  the  custom 
was  at  that  time,  the  rails  were  torn  up  by  a  mob  of 
blacks  as  well  as  whites,  lashed  to  fury  by  the  sight 
of  the  "Yankee  invaders/'  There,  on  the  anni- 
versary of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  the  blood  of 
Massachusetts  was  shed  on  the  cobblestones  of 
the  city  street,  and  when  the  command  reached 
Washington  in  the  evening,  it  marched  to  the  Capitol 
followed  by  a  line  of  stretchers  bearing  its  wounded. 

To  prevent  the  coming  of  any  more  troop  trains 
to  Baltimore,  railway  bridges  were  destroyed  above 
that  city,  and  Washington  was  cut  off  from  the 
North.     Baltimoreans  came  in  delegations  to  insist 

.204 


AND   THE   WAR   CAME' 


that  no  soldiers  be  brought  across  Maryland.  "I 
must  have  troops  to  defend  this  capital,"  Lincoln 
reasoned  with  them;  "geographically  it  lies  sur- 
rounded by  the  soil  of  Maryland,  and  mathematically 
the  necessity  exists  that  they  should  come  over  her 
territory.  Our  men  are  not  moles  and  cannot 
dig  under  the  earth;  they  are  not  birds,  and  cannot 
fly  through  the  air.  There  is  no  way  but  to  march 
them  across,  and  that  they  must  do." 

Through  an  anxious  week,  Lincoln  waited  for 
troops.  "Why  don't  they  come?  Why  don't  they 
come  ?"  he  was  heard  to  ask  himself  as  he  walked 
his  office  floor.  "I  begin  to  believe  there  is  no 
North,"  he  said  to  some  men  of  the  Massachusetts 
regiment.  New  York  mails  were  three  days  in  com- 
ing through.  Even  telegraphic  communication  was 
interrupted  at  times.  The  wildest  rumors  gained 
currency.  Wagons  moved  through  the  streets,  laden 
with  the  baggage  and  furniture  of  fleeing  families. 
Mrs.  Lincoln  was  urged  to  take  her  children  and  join 
in  the  flight,  but  she  clung  to  her  husband,  protesting, 
"I  shall  never  leave  him  here  alone." 

General  Scott  prepared  to  defend  the  place, 
point  by  point.  The  public  buildings  were  barri- 
caded. At  every  door  of  the  Capitol,  cement  barrels, 
sand-bags,  and  heaps  of  iron  were  piled  ten  feet  high. 
Office  seekers  found  better  use  for  their  time  than 

205 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


haunting  the  anterooms.  They  were  armed  with 
muskets,  revolvers,  knives,  and  clubs,  and  a  band 
of  them  camped  in  the  great  East  Room  of  the 
White  House,  sleeping  on  the  velvet  carpet. 

Famine  menaced  the  city.  The  surrounding 
country  had  been  well-nigh  stripped  of  provisions, 
and  the  government  seized  a  large  quantity  of  flour 
in  storage  at  a  mill.  After  trying  delays  the  sol- 
diers began  to  arrive,  however,  by  way  of  Annapolis, 
and  soon  nearly  twenty  thousand  armed  men  were 
assembled.     Washington  was  safe. 

The  new  administration  struggled  beneath  a 
tremendous  burden.  The  Republican  party  was 
unused  to  power.  Its  leaders  had  been  trained 
almost  wholly  in  opposition.  Lincoln,  who  was 
not  accustomed  to  having  even  an  office  clerk  under 
him,  suddenly  found  himself  charged  with  the  task 
of  organizing,  equipping,  and  commanding  an  im- 
mense army. 

Congress  was  not  in  session.  The  members  of 
the  cabinet  were  mere  apprentices  in  their  several 
branches;  clerks  resigned  by  the  hundreds,  and  most 
of  the  experienced  chiefs  of  bureaus  had  gone  with 
the  South.  Seward  was  innocent  of  diplomacy. 
Chase,  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury,  was  a  novice  in 
finance.  Welles,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  was  ig- 
norant of  naval  affairs,  and  Cameron,  the  Secretary 

206 


"AND   THE   WAR   CAME" 


of  War,  knew  nothing  of  military  matters.  All  were 
obliged  to  learn  the  very  primer  of  their  novel  duties 
in  the  face  of  an  enemy  which  had  chosen  specially 
trained  men  to  lead  it  forward. 

The  army,  badly  crippled  by  the  resignations 
of  many  able  officers,  was  under  the  command  of 
Lieutenant-general  Scott,  a  veteran  of  the  War  of 
1 8 12  and  of  the  war  with  Mexico,  who  at  seventy-five 
still  retained  a  stalwart  spirit,  but  whose  intellect 
was  enfeebled  by  age  and  long  service.  The  Adju- 
tant-general had  transferred  himself  to  the  same 
office  in  the  hostile  army.  The  younger  men  who 
were  to  captain  the  armies  of  the  Union  were  yet 
in  obscurity.  Lincoln  could  only  employ  such  tal- 
ent as  he  found  about  him,  and  strive  to  inspire 
the  slow-going  and  the  timid  with  his  own  spirit 
of  courage  and  activity. 

The  free  states,  however,  fairly  overwhelmed  the 
government  with  their  generosity  in  enlisting  sol- 
diers. Arms  must  be  found  for  them  and  uni- 
forms manufactured.  Above  all,  money  had  to  be 
raised,  and  the  national  credit  never  was  so  low. 
Chase  threatened  the  reluctant  bankers  that  if  they 
did  not  accept  the  bonds  which  he  was  issuing, 
he  would  flood  the  country  with  circulating  notes, 
even  if  it  should  take  a  thousand  dollars  of  such 
currency  to  buy  a  breakfast. 

207 


BRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Lincoln  took  a  direct  and  active  interest  in  all 
the  military  details,  so  unfamiliar  to  him.  He 
soon  found  that  he  could  not  leave  them  wholly  to 
others.  He  was  impatient  of  the  red  tape  which 
entangled  his  feet  at  every  step.  If  he  asked  for 
a  report  on  a  subject,  it  would  be  so  long  and  com- 
plicated as  to  be  of  no  use  to  him.  "When  I  send 
a  man  to  buy  a  horse,"  he  said  one  day  as  he  glanced 
at  such  a  report,  "I  don't  wish  him  to  tell  me  how 
many  hairs  he  has  in  his  tail;  I  wish  to  know  only 
his  points." 

He  felt  obliged  personally  to  go  into  many  matters 
which  he  would  have  preferred  to  leave  to  trained 
and  competent  subordinates.  He  even  tested  vari- 
ous kinds  of  rifles,  which  were  offered  for  sale  to  the 
government.  Several  times  he  went  to  the  grounds 
back  of  the  White  House  and  fired  the  weapons 
at  a  target,  usually  a  little  piece  of  paper  which  he 
had  pinned  to  a  tree,  eighty  or  a  hundred  paces  away. 
Once  when  dissatisfied  with  the  result,  he  whittled  a 
small  wooden  sight  and  adjusted  it  over  the  carbine, 
after  which  he  shot  two  rounds,  scoring  a  dozen 
hits  in  fourteen  shots. 

The  recollection  of  his  only  martial  experience 
was  brought  to  mind  in  an  interesting  way  one  day 
when  Major  Anderson  called  at  the  White  House. 
Lincoln  thanked  the  Major  for  his  defence  of  Fort 

208 


AND   THE   WAR   CAME 


Sumter  and  then  asked,  "Major,  do  you  remember 
ever  meeting  me  before  ?"  "No,  Mr.  President/' 
the  Major  replied  with  some  surprise,  for  he  was 
quite  sure  he  never  had  seen  Lincoln  until  then. 
"My  memory  is  better  than  yours,"  the  President 
said  with  an  amused  look;  "you  mustered  me  into 
the  service  of  the  United  States  in  1832,  at  Dixon's 
Ferry,  in  the  Black  Hawk  War." 

Troubles  abroad  were  added  to  the  troubles  at 
home.  Great  Britain  hastened  to  lead  the  nations 
of  Europe  in  conceding  to  the  Confederacy  the 
rights  of  a  belligerent  power.  The  royal  proclama- 
tion to  this  effect  was  issued  on  the  day  that  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  the  new  Minister  of  the  United 
States,  arrived  in  London.  When  the  news  reached 
Washington,  Seward  at  once  prepared  a  long  and, 
on  the  whole,  an  able  protest,  in  the  course  of 
which,  however,  he  reminded  the  British  that  the 
Americans  had  whipped  them  in  two  wars,  and 
were  ready  to  fight  them  again,  and,  if  need  be,  two 
or  three  other  European  nations  at  one  and  the 
same  time. 

He  proposed  to  send  this  extraordinary  paper  to 
Adams,  and  have  him  read  its  offensive  language 
to  the  British  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  In  ac- 
cordance with  custom  he  took  it  to  the  President, 
and  read  it  to  him.     The  latter  at  once  saw  th» 

P  20~ 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


grave  mistake  which  his  Secretary  of  State  had  made, 
and  he  requested  him  to  leave  the  document. 

It  was  Lincoln's  first  experience  in  international 
diplomacy,  but  Adams  probably  was  spared  the  hu- 
miliation of  receiving  his  passports  from  the  London 
ministry  and  a  ruinous  foreign  war  was  averted  by 
the  alterations  which  this  country  lawyer  made  in 
Seward's  despatch.  Drawing  his  pen  through  a  few 
words  here  and  there,  selecting  a  softer  term  now 
and  then,  and  marking  "omit  this"  opposite  some 
aggressive  passage,  he  stripped  the  communication 
of  all  harm,  without  impairing  its  strength. 

Finally,  he  expressly  instructed  the  American 
Minister,  instead  of  reading  it  to  the  British  Secretary, 
to  hold  it  entirely  for  his  own  guidance.  On  an 
occasion  such  as  this,  Lincoln's  level  head  and 
native  common  sense  availed  more  for  the  cause  of 
the  Union  than  the  theories  and  speculations  of 
a  trained  man  who  had  pursued  statesmanship  as 
an  art  or  a  profession. 

Although  the  volunteers  continued  to  pour  into 
Washington,  the  outposts  of  the  Confederacy  drew 
nearer  and  nearer,  and  Lincoln  gazed  long  and  often 
through  a  White  House  telescope  at  the  Confeder- 
ate flag  which  floated  above  the  city  of  Alexandria, 
across  the  Potomac  in  Virginia. 

The    Confederate    capital    had    be**n    established 

2IO 


AND   THE  WAR   CAME 


at  Richmond,  only  a  little  more  than  one  hundred 
miles  away,  and  "On  to  Richmond "  was  the  pas- 
sionate watchword  which  resounded  throughout 
the  North  with  increasing  volume.  An  influential 
Republican  journal  in  New  York  loudly  demanded 
the  resignation  of  the  cabinet,  and  held  over  the 
President  the  threat  that  he  himself  might  be  su- 
perseded unless  the  war  were  pushed  more  vigor- 
ously. 

When  Congress  met  on  the  fourth  of  July,  it 
found  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  troops 
enrolled  under  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  Lincoln 
ready  to  give  full  account  of  his  stewardship  through 
four  momentous  months.  He  recounted  in  his  mes- 
sage the  great  perils  which  he  had  been  called 
upon  to  meet.  "As  a  private  citizen,"  he  said, 
"the  executive  could  not  have  consented  that  these 
institutions  shall  perish;  much  less  could  he,  in 
betrayal  of  so  vast  and  so  sacred  a  trust  as  the  free 
people  have  confided  to  him." 

With  peculiar  pride,  this  man  of  the  common  people 
pointed  to  the  volunteer  army  which  he  had  as- 
sembled, "without  a  soldier  in  it  but  who  has  taken 
his  place  there  of  his  own  free  choice,"  while  in  his 
democratic  soul  he  exulted  that  there  was  hardly 
a  regiment  "from  which  there  could  not  be  selected 
a  President,   a   cabinet,   a   Congress,    and   perhap? 

211 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


a  court,  abundantly  able  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment." 

Congress  readily  authorized  an  army  of  half  a 
million  men  and  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars 
with  which  to  support  it.  The  senators  and  represen- 
tatives echoed  and  enforced  the  national  cry  for  a 
forward  movement,  and  the  forces  then  encamped 
upon  the  Virginia  hills  overlooking  the  capital  were 
started  southward. 

At  Manassas,  thirty-two  miles  from  Washington, 
they  encountered  a  Confederate  army,  and  the  battle 
of  Bull  Run  was  fought.  In  the  heat  of  a  July 
Sunday,  the  men  of  the  North  and  the  South 
grappled  for  the  first  time,  moiling  their  bright, 
new  uniforms  of  blue  and  gray  in  the  heavy  dust 
of  the  parched  earth. 

Civilians  in  Congress  and  in  the  departments  were 
so  confident  of  an  easy  victory  for  the  North,  they 
hastened  to  the  scene  of  the  expected  conflict  as  if 
to  a  monster  picnic,  eager  to  speed  the  soldiers  on  in 
their  holiday  march  to  Richmond.  From  the  Con- 
federate capital,  too,  spectators  flocked  to  the  theater 
of  war,  and  Jefferson  Davis  could  not  repress  a  sigh 
as  he  looked  across  the  lines  and  saw  waving  on  the 
other  side  the  flag  under  which  he  had  been  reared 
at  West  Point,  and  which  he  had  followed  on  the 
plains  of  the  West  and  on  the  fields  of  Mexico. 

212 


AND   THE   WAR   CAME 


Lincoln  hid  his  anxiety  as  he  could,  while  he 
waited  for  the  outcome.  He  went  to  church  in 
the  morning.  In  the  early  afternoon,  rumors  of 
all  kinds  flew  about.  When  he  called  on  General 
Scott  at  three  o'clock,  he  found  the  aged  soldier 
asleep  in  his  office.  The  General  woke  up  suffi- 
ciently to  express  his  confidence  i  i  the  result,  and 
fell  asleep  again  as  the  President  left.  Definite 
news  of  a  great  Union  success  came  later,  and 
Lincoln  went  for  a  drive. 

At  six  o'clock,  Seward  hurried  to  the  White  House 
and  excitedly  asked  for  the  President.  "The  battle 
is  lost,"  he  exclaimed  in  a  hoarse  whisper.  General 
McDowell  was  in  full  retreat,  and  calling  on  General 
Scott  to  save  the  capital.  Lincoln  returned  in  a 
few  minutes  and  heard  in  silence  the  report  of  the 
disaster.  Without  saying  a  word  or  betraying  by 
look  any  disappointment,  he  turned  from  the  door 
of  the  White  House  and  went  to  the  War  Department. 

As  the  fleeing  fugitives  from  the  scene  of  defeat 
straggled  breathlessly  into  the  city  toward  mid- 
night, Lincoln,  stretched  on  the  lounge  in  the  cabinet 
room,  received  the  wild  reports  of  the  rout  and 
of  the  probable  capture  of  Washington.  No  one 
realized  that  in  the  clash  of  two  green  armies,  the 
victors  were  almost  as  completely  overcome  by 
surprise  as  were  the  vanquished    themselves.     The 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Confederates,  content  to  hold  the  ground  from 
which  they  had  driven  the  Federals,  made  no  for- 
ward movement  on  the  capital. 

When  morning  came,  Lincoln  still  lay  on  the 
lounge,  listening  and  making  notes,  for  he  had  neither 
gone  to  bed  nor  slept.  All  day  Monday,  under  the 
gloom  of  a  rainy  sky,  the  beaten  and  demoralized 
troops  waded  through  the  muddy  streets.  The 
North  was  humiliated  and  embittered.  The  con- 
fusion threatened  to  run  into  chaos. 

Lincoln  showed  no  sign  of  wavering  in  the  furious 
storm.  On  the  contrary,  those  who  watched  him 
were  inspired  when  they  saw  beneath  the  sadness 
which  enveloped  him  like  a  cloud,  an  added  strength 
of  purpose,  a  deeper  determination.  He  was  learn- 
mg,  side  by  side  with  the  people,  the  awful  price 
which  must  be  paid  for  the  salvation  of  the  Union. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

IN   THE    GLOOM   OF    DEFEAT 


George  B.  McClellan  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  July  27,  1861. — The  armies  costing  #2,000,000 
a  day  with  no  battles  won.  —  The  seizure  of  Mason  and  Slidell, 
November  8,  1861,  brought  threats  of  war  from  the  British.— 
Victoria  and  Lincoln  working  together  for  peace.  —  Great 
success  of  Lincoln's  statesmanship  in  winning  the  border  states. 
—  Stanton  called  to  the  Cabinet,  January  13,  1862.  —  Grant's 
capture  of  Fort  Donelson,  February  16.  —  The  Merrimack 
sank  the  Cumberland  in  Hampton  Roads,  March  8.  —  Alarm 
in  the  North. — The  victory  of  the  Monitor,  March  9.  —  Lincoln's 
simple  faith.  —  Farragut  captured  New  Orleans,  April  25.  — 
McClellan's  unsuccessful  Peninsular  Campaign  against  Rich- 
mond, March  17  to  July  2.  —  Second  defeat  at  Bull  Run, 
August  30. — Victory  at  Antietam,  September  16-17.— 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  September  22.  —  The  winter  of 
1 862-1 863  the  darkest  since  Valley  Forge.  —  A  movement 
to  force  Lincoln  to  resign.  —  The  disasters  of  Fredericksburg, 
December  13,  1862,  and  Chancellorsville,  May  2-4,  1863.  — 
Lincoln's  courage.  —  Lee's  invasion  of  the  North. 

Lincoln  wasted  no  time  in  fighting  over  again 
a  battle  that  was  lost.  He  offered  no  defence  for 
himself,  and  found  no  fault  with  others.  To  cheer 
the  disheartened  soldiers  of  Bull  Run,  he  went 
among  them  in  their  camps  as  if  they  had  won  a 
victory,  and  no  officer  heard  a  word  of  complaint 
from  his  lips. 

215 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


There  were  those  in  the  North  who  were  so  dis- 
mayed by  the  retreat,  that  they  lost  all  faith  in  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Union.  Horace  Greeley  wrote  to  Lincoln 
in  despair.  "You  are  not  considered  a  great  man," 
ne  frankly  said,  "  and  I  am  a  hopelessly  broken  one," 
and  he  called  upon  the  President  to  sacrifice  him- 
self "if  the  Union  is  irrevocably  gone,"  and  give 
up  the  needless  struggle.  Counsels  like  these, 
while  they  did  not  seem  to  weaken  the  purpose  of 
Lincoln,  must  have  heavily  taxed  his  fortitude. 

Men  who  pressed  about  him  with  conflicting 
advice,  found  him  not  thinking  of  the  past,  but  of 
the  future.  The  very  day  after  Bull  Run,  on  the 
advice  of  General  Scott  and  with  the  enthusiastic 
approval  of  the  country,  he  appointed  George  B. 
McClellan  to  the  command  of  the  routed  army. 

McClellan  was  a  brilliant  engineer  graduate  of 
West  Point,  who  had  resigned  a  railway  presidency 
and  surrendered  a  salary  of  ten  thousand  dollars 
to  enter  the  military  service  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war.  In  a  series  of  skirmishes,  he  had  driven  scat- 
tered bands  of  Confederates  out  of  the  mountains 
of  western  Virginia,  and  secured  that  region  to  the 
Union. 

Although,  before  this  brief  campaign,  he  never 
had  commanded  more  than  a  company  of  men, 
or  held  higher  rank  than  captain,  he  came  to  the 

216 


IN   THE    GLOOM    OF   DEFEAT 

head  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-four,  with  the  prestige  of  the  only  success 
yet  won  by  Union  arms  and  with  the  admiring 
confidence  of  the  public.  Hailed  as  the  "Young 
Napoleon,"  his  martial  portrait  was  almost  wor- 
shipped in  the  homes  of  the  people.  The  popular 
faith  in  the  youthful  hero  of  the  hour  was  shared 
by  Lincoln,  and  President  and  cabinet  and  senators 
paid  deference  to  him. 

His  camps  became  the  principal  social  attraction 
of  the  capital,  and  at  a  grand  review,  with  Lincoln 
mounted  beside  him,  he  proudly  rode  down  the  lines 
of  fifty  thousand  soldierly  troops,  to  the  thunder  of 
artillery,  the  roll  of  drums,  the  blaring  of  bugles, 
and  the  waving  of  standards.  Displaying  a  genius 
for  order,  he  had  knit  the  mob  of  raw  recruits  into 
a  compact  and  imposing  army;  officering,  arming, 
uniforming,  and  drilling  it  in  accordance  with  the 
highest  military  standard.  At  the  same  time,  his 
engineering  skill  was  employed  in  behalf  of  the  de- 
fence of  Washington  until  he  had  thrown  around 
the  city  a  chain  of  forty  well-placed  forts. 

Here,  however,  his  ardor  and  his  ability  seemed 
to  halt.  The  enemy,  facing  him  from  behind  its 
intrenchments  at  Manassas,  did  not  tempt  him  to 
a  forward  movement.  Dizzied  by  his  sudden  eleva- 
tion to  the  heights  of  fame,  he  grew  deaf  to  advice 

217 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


and  impatient  with  advisers.  He  ignored  Scott, 
and  sneered  at  Lincoln.  Nevertheless,  he  had 
done  such  good  work  as  an  organizer,  and  was  so 
strong  in  the  affections  of  his  army,  that  the  President 
stood  by  him  in  the  face  of  a  violent  reaction  from 
the  hero-worshipping  of  a  short  while  before.  The 
public  mind  became  restless  as  months  of  inac- 
tivity went  by,  and  the  once  proud  report,  "All 
quiet  on  the  Potomac,"  passed  into  a  jest  and  a 
byword. 

Congress  met  in  the  winter  under  lowering  clouds. 
The  war  was  costing  two  millions  a  day,  the  public 
debt  was  piling  up,  and  not  a  battle  had  been  won. 
Secretary  Chase  was  at  the  end  of  his  resources 
in  the  money  markets  of  the  cities.  His  next 
resort  was  the  issuance  of  paper  money,  "green- 
backs," as  they  came  to  be  known. 

The  nation,  sorely  distracted  within,  was  beset 
without  by  foreign  menace.  Great  Britain,  France, 
and  Spain  invaded  Mexico  in  seeming  contempt  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It  was  feared  their  next 
step  would  be  the  recognition  of  the  Confederacy 
as  an  established  and  independent  nation,  and 
possibly  their  forcible  intervention  between  the 
North  and  the  South.  A  cotton  famine  threatened 
England,  by  reason  of  the  blockade  of  southern 
ports,  which  the  navy  of  the  Union  had  effected. 

218 


IN   THE   GLOOM    OF   DEFEAT 

English  mills  were  closed  and  thousands  of  English 
working  people  were  in  dire  distress. 

In  the  midst  of  this  perilous  international  situa- 
tion, a  naval  vessel  of  the  United  States  overhauled 
the  British  mail  steamer  Trent,  on  the  high  seas, 
and  took  from  her  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell,  who 
were  bound  on  a  foreign  mission  for  the  Confederate 
government.  The  North  seized  upon  the  incident 
as  a  subject  for  wild  rejoicing.  When  the  captives 
were  landed  in  Boston,  the  city  banqueted  their 
captor,  who  also  received  the  congratulations  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  and  the  thanks  of  Con- 
gress. 

The  British  government  was  aflame  with  indigna- 
tion and  started  troops  to  Canada,  while  the  ministers 
of  the  Queen  framed  an  ugly  communication  to  the 
government  at  Washington.  Happily  Victoria  was 
a  lover  of  peace.  She  and  her  Prince  Consort  gave 
their  anxious  attention  to  softening  the  despatch. 
This  noble  and  important  act  of  statesmanship  was 
the  last  public  duty  which  the  Prince  performed, 
and  some  have  attributed  his  death,  which  quickly 
followed,  to  the  heavy  strain  of  the  crisis  arising 
from  the  Trent  case. 

It  was  equally  fortunate  that  the  American  chief 
of  state  kept  a  cool  head  in  this  period,  when  states- 
men and  people  joined  in  twisting  the  tail  of  the 

219 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


then  very  unpopular  British  lion.  Neithei  Lincoln 
nor  Seward  had  shared  in  the  national  enthusiasm 
over  the  unauthorized  act  of  a  naval  captain  in 
firing  across  the  bow  of  a  neutral  vessel  on  the  high 
seas  and  searching  her.  As  the  public  exultation 
died  away,  they  united  in  the  ungrateful  task  of 
mending  a  bad  case. 

The  Secretary  of  State  wrote  a  skilful  and  sat- 
isfactory reply.  He  conceded,  in  cheerful  terms, 
the  justness  of  the  British  complaint,  and  grace- 
fully disavowed  the  seizure,  proudly  reminding  the 
British  that  he  welcomed  an  opportunity  thus  to 
establish  the  historical  position  of  the  United  States 
—  a  principle  which  it  had  upheld  throughout  the 
existence  of  the  nation  and  against  even  Great 
Britain  herself. 

The  allusion  to  the  American  contention  in  the 
War  of  1 8 12  was  not  lost  on  public  opinion  in  either 
country.  Accompanied  by  the  grumblings  of  a 
sorely  tried  people,  the  Confederate  commissioners 
were  surrendered,  and  the  terrifying  shadow  of 
a  foreign  war  was  dispelled. 

In  the  general  disappointment  over  the  lack  of 
military  success,  few  took  account  of  a  great  and  far- 
reaching  victory  which  Lincoln,  virtually  without 
bloodshed,  had  quietly  won  in  the  border  states. 
He  had  slowly  brought  to  the  support  of  the  Union 

220 


IN  THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

the  slave  states  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri,  laid  the  foundations  of  the  new  and 
loyal  state  of  West  Virginia,  and  encouraged  the 
patriotism  of  the  brave  dwellers  in  the  mountains 
of  eastern  Tennessee. 

Himself  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their 
flesh,  he  had  led  the  people  of  the  border,  step  by 
step,  into  the  path  of  loyalty.  It  is  doubtful  if 
any  other  leader  in  the  North  was  fitted  to  work 
with  them  and  solve  this  delicate  and  vital  problem. 
Lincoln  was  no  "Yankee"  in  their  eyes.  In  their 
peculiar  clannishness,  they  felt  he  was  one  of  them. 
He  thought  with  them,  and  patiently  moved  with 
them,  his  hand  on  their  pulse,  as  he  cautiously  felt 
his  way  to  the  final  goal. 

When  the  Baltimoreans  raged  against  the  passage 
of  troops  through  their  city,  he  brought  his  recruits 
to  Washington  by  way  of  Annapolis.  When  Ken- 
tucky resented  the  northern  soldier  as  an  invader, 
he  sent  Anderson,  a  gallant  Kentuckian  and  the 
defender  of  Fort  Sumter,  to  take  command  in  that 
state.  When  the  radical  Republicans  of  the  North 
clamored  for  the  summary  abolition  of  slavery 
and  the  subjugation  of  the  halting  border  states  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet,  he  steadily  persisted  in 
his  moderation,  and  confidently  waited  for  the  logic 
of  events  to  bring  them  into  line. 

221 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


"How  many  times,"  James  Russell  Lowell  cried 
out,  "must  we  save  Kentucky  and  lose  our  own 
souls?"  Lincoln  believed  that  to  "lose  Kentucky 
is  nearly  the  same  as  to  lose  the  whole  game."  Ken- 
tucky lost,  he  reasoned,  "we  cannot  hold  Missouri, 
nor,  as  I  think,  Maryland."  These  lost,  and  the 
Union  was  lost. 

The  sentiment  and  interest  of  the  border  people 
were  with  their  kindred  in  the  other  slave  states 
in  the  beginning  of  the  conflict.  They  had  not, 
however,  been  bred  in  the  school  of  secession,  and 
they  loved  the  Union.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
distrusted  the  new  party  in  power,  and  suspected  it 
would  conduct  the  war  with  partisan  and  sectional 
objects. 

Lincoln  alone  interested  them,  and  he  slowly 
but  steadily  won  their  confidence  and  support. 
Maryland  ceased  to  resist  or  protest,  as  the  troops 
from  the  North  poured  through  Baltimore.  The 
Confederate  government  was  overthrown  in  Mis- 
souri, and  that  state  became  a  stanch  upholder 
of  the  flag.  Kentucky  elected  a  Union  Legislature, 
and  the  stars  and  stripes  were  run  up  on  the  Capitol 
at  Frankfort.  Thus  by  the  wisest  statesmanship, 
pursued  under  a  storm  of  censure,  Lincoln  rescued 
the  nation  from  certain  destruction  before  a  military 
victory  was  inscribed  on  the  standard  of  the  Union^ 

Z22 


IN  THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

By  his  peaceful  capture  of  the  five  states  which 
lay  on  the  border,  including  West  Virginia,  he  added 
to  the  strength  of  his  cause  a  population  of  more 
than  three  million  Southerners,  who  contributed 
above  three  hundred  thousand  fighting  men  to  the 
ranks  of  the  Union.  Thenceforth  the  North  was 
not  required  to  battle  for  this  vast  stretch  of  southern 
soil,  and  it  became  the  base  of  the  great  armies  as 
they  moved  southward.  Lincoln's  bare  hand  had 
dealt  the  Confederacy  a  deadlier  blow  than  it  ever 
was  to  receive  on  any  battlefield. 

The  war  had  begun  with  the  cry  "On  to  Rich- 
mond," and  public  interest  was  centered  upon  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  people  paid  much  less 
heed  to  the  armies  which  were  forming  in  the  valley 
of  the  Mississippi.  Yet  these  warriors  in  the  West 
were  the  first  to  gladden  the  national  heart  with 
a  victory,  and  linked  in  glory  with  this  victory  was 
the  unknown  name  of  Grant. 

Without  any  brilliant  reviews  or  resounding 
proclamations,  and  unheralded  as  another  Napoleon, 
this  obscure  and  silent  soldier  led  such  forces  as 
his  unfriendly  superiors  gave  him,  up  the  banks 
of  the  Tennessee  River.  At  Fort  Donelson  he 
thrilled  the  wearied  nation  with  the  watchwords, 
"Unconditional  surrender,"  and  took  fifteen  thou- 
sand prisoners. 

223 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


In  two  months  more,  the  sailors  and  soldiers  of 
the  Union  bore  the  banished  flag  up  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  and  hoisted  it  again  over  the  city 
of  New  Orleans.  Soon  Memphis  fell,  and  Port 
Hudson  and  Vicksburg  alone  remained  to  challenge 
the  free  navigation  of  the  "  Father  of  Waters." 

Few  dreamed,  however,  of  the  great  toll  in  blood 
which  this  latter  stronghold  of  the  Confederacy 
would  yet  exact  ere  it  yielded.  The  loyal  moun- 
taineers of  Tennessee  still  waited  for  the  army  of 
rescue,  and  when  Sherman  said  that  two  hundred 
thousand  men  would  be  required  for  the  campaign, 
he  was  set  down  as  crazy,  relieved  of  his  command, 
and  sent  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  served  in  the  harm- 
less position  of  drill-master  for  the  volunteer  regi- 
ments. 

Meanwhile  the  splendid  Army  of  the  Potomac 
continued  to  shine  its  buttons  and  dazzle  the  ladies 
of  Washington.  Lincoln,  in  despair,  had  taken  up 
the  study  of  books  of  tactics,  to  prepare  himself 
for  the  work  which  professional  soldiers  had  failed 
to  do. 

Forgetful,  in  his  anxiety  for  the  public  welfare, 
of  any  personal  feelings  he  may  have  had,  he  ap- 
pointed as  Secretary  of  War,  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
the  lawyer  who  rudely  pushed  him  out  of  the  trial 
of  the  reaper  case  at  Cincinnati  a  few  years  before 

224 


IN  THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

and  who  had  been  a  merciless  critic  of  his  administra- 
tion. By  this  selection  3  powerful  force  was  added 
to  the  national  counsels.  Stanton  was  a  Democrat, 
and  had  sat  in  Buchanan's  cabinet,  and  although 
as  unlike  as  two  men  well  could  be,  Lincoln  was 
able  to  employ  and  direct  the  great  energy  of  his 
new  and  tireless  Secretary. 

After  more  than  six  months  of  inaction,  McClellan 
was  positively  ordered  to  break  camp  and  begin 
a  forward  movement  toward  Richmond.  Again, 
however,  the  General  delayed,  and  the  Confederate 
army  at  Manassas  was  permitted  to  march  away 
unmolested,  leaving  its  terrible-looking  wooden  can- 
non to  mock  the  timid  enemy. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  Confederates  exasper- 
ated the  North  by  escaping  unhurt  from  the  front  of 
a  far  greater  army,  consternation  was  spread  abroad 
by  the  appearance  of  the  Confederate  ram  Merri- 
mack, in  the  waters  of  Hampton  Roads.  This  ves- 
sel, formerly  belonging  to  the  navy  of  the  United 
States,  had  been  so  covered  with  iron  by  its  new 
and  ingenious  owners  as  to  make  it  invincible  against 
wooden  ships.  With  its  big  iron  prow,  it  readily 
sank  the  first  boat  it  assailed  and  its  work  of  de- 
struction continued  until  it  was  the  unchallenged 
monarch  of  the  Roads. 

No  port  of  the  Union  was  safe  with  this  monster 
Q  225 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


afloat,  shedding  the  shot  of  its  foes  as  a  duck  sheds 
water.  "It  may  land  a  shell  in  the  midst  of  us 
while  we  are  talking  here,"  Stanton  said  as  he  stood 
in  the  cabinet  room  of  the  White  House.  The 
Secretary  of  War  was  filled  with  the  gloomiest 
forebodings.  The  whole  character  of  the  war  was 
changed.  Every  naval  vessel  under  the  stars  and 
stripes  would  be  destroyed  by  the  Merrimack,  and 
the  great  cities  of  the  northern  seaboard  would  be 
laid  under  tribute  of  gold.  A  fleet  of  canal  boats, 
piled  with  stone,  was  hastened  down  the  Potomac, 
to  be  sunk  in  the  channel  at  the  approach  of  the 
dreaded  vessel,  in  order  to  prevent  its  coming  to 
Washington. 

Lincoln  would  not  believe  the  situation  could 
be  as  dark  as  it  looked  in  that  hour  of  fright.  He 
told  one  anxious  caller  he  expected  setbacks  and 
defeats,  for  they  are  common  to  all  wars,  "but/* 
he  added  with  simple  seriousness,  "I  have  not  the 
slightest  fear  of  any  result  which  shall  fatally  impair 
our  military  and  naval  strength.  This  is  God's 
fight,  and  He  will  win  it  in  His  own  good  time.  He 
vill  take  care  our  enemies  do  not  push  us  too  far." 

The  faith  of  the  man  grew  with  his  needs  in  the 
terrible  years  of  darkness.  "I  have  been  driven  to 
my  knees  many  times,"  he  confessed,  "by  the  over- 
whelming conviction  that  I  had  nowhere  else  to  go." 

aa6 


IN   THE    GLOOM    OF   DEFEAT 

He  hoped  now  that  a  novel  vessel  which  had  in- 
terested him  would  prove  to  be  a  timely  instrument 
for  the  overthrow  of  the  Merrimack.  When  the 
plans  of  John  Ericsson,  the  inventor  of  this  craft, 
were  brought  to  Washington,  the  naval  experts 
were  divided  in  their  opinion  of  them.  The  man 
having  them  in  charge  went  to  the  White  House 
to  see  Lincoln,  feeling,  as  every  one  did,  that  he  was 
ready  to  hear  an  appeal 

Lincoln  always  was  curious  about  mechanical 
inventions,  and  he  examined  the  plans  with  intel- 
ligent interest.  "  I  think  there  is  something  in  this," 
he  remarked,  and  he  went  in  person  to  the  meeting 
of  the  experts,  where,  sitting  on  a  box  in  the  crowded 
room,  he  lent  his  influence  to  the  adoption  of  the 
experiment. 

When  the  news  came  of  the  exploits  of  the  Con- 
federate ironclad,  he  remembered  that  Ericsson's 
boat  was  even  then  on  the  way  from  New  York. 
The  general  opinion  was  that  it  would  not  weather 
the  seas,  but  Lincoln  said,  "I  am  sure  the  Monitor 
is  still  afloat,  and  will  give  a  good  account  of  herself.'* 
In  the  very  evening  of  the  day  of  the  Merrimack's 
triumph,  the  strange  ship,  "like  a  cheese-box  on 
a  raft,"  arrived  on  the  scene  under  tow. 

The  Merrimack  steamed  confidently  toward  her 
uncinny  little  foe  the  next  morning,  and  for  three 

227 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


hours  the  stillness  of  the  Sunday  was  broken  by 
an  extraordinary  battle,  the  first  that  ever  took 
place  between  ironclads.  At  the  end,  Lincoln's 
"cheese-box"  was  the  almost  unscathed  victor, 
and  the  naval  experts,  not  only  at  Washington,  but 
at  every  capital  of  Europe,  learned  a  useful  lesson. 
The  wooden  fighting  ship  was  doomed;  a  revolu- 
tion had  been  wrought  on  the  seas. 

The  mouth  of  the  James  thus  freed  from  the  enemy 
by  the  Monitor,  McClellan  determined  to  make  his 
tardy  advance  on  Richmond  along  the  banks  of 
that  river  rather  than  by  the  direct  course,  which 
the  President  favored.  Taking  with  him  from 
Washington  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  sol- 
diers, his  army  was  readily  transported  by  boats 
down  the  Potomac.  For  nearly  three  months  he 
battled  in  his  Peninsular  Campaign  at  Yorktown, 
Williamsburg,  Seven  Pines,  Gaines's  Mill,  and  at 
Malvern  Hill.  Once  his  army  was  within  seven 
miles  of  Richmond,  and  the  archives  of  the  Con- 
federate government  were  packed  for  flight. 

All  in  vain !  Midsummer  found  McClellan  con- 
gratulating himself  on  a  masterly  retreat.  Lincoln 
was  the  last  to  lose  faith  in  this  accomplished 
but  unsuccessful  soldier.  He  leaned  upon  him  no 
longer.  He  admitted  afterward  that  the  defeat 
of  the   Peninsular   Campaign   left   him   "nearly  as 


IN   THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

inconsolable  as  I  could  be  and  live."  When  he 
foresaw  its  failure,  he  gratified  an  impulse  by  writ- 
ing to  Secretary  Seward  a  strange  pledge :  "  I  expect 
to  maintain  this  contest  until  successful,  or  till  I  die, 
or  am  conquered,  or  my  term  expires,  or  Congress 
or  the  country  forsake  me." 

He  called  for  three  hundred  thousand  more  men, 
and  started  another  army  southward  under  Pope ;  but 
at  Bull  Run  a  second  defeat  was  scored  against  the 
arms  of  the  North.  Again  the  Federals  fled  from 
the  shore  of  that  wretched  little  stream  and  sought 
refuge  within  the  fortifications  of  the  capital. 

Emboldened  by  his  unbroken  successes  to  take 
the  aggressive,  Lee  opened  a  campaign  of  invasion. 
Washington  and  Pennsylvania  alike  trembled  at  his 
progress  northward.  Lincoln  turned  once  more  to 
McClellan,  against  the  protest  of  his  advisers,  and 
called  upon  him  to  drive  back  the  Confede/ate 
chieftain  and  defend  the  capital.  The  battle  of 
Antieiam  resulted,  on  the  soil  of  Maryland,  and  the 
invaders  were  checked  there  by  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

Lincoln  had  promised  God  in  prayer,  if  He  would 
give  the  Union  a  victory,  the  shackles  should  be 
stricken  from  the  slaves.  When  the  news  of  the 
success  at  Antietam  came,  he  kept  his  vow  and 
drew  forth  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  which 

229 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


he  had  prepared  and  held  in  readiness  for  the 
occasion.  By  its  terms,  all  slaves  within  the  Con- 
federate lines  on  the  first  day  of  the  coming  year 
were  to  be  declared  free. 

McClellan  again  disappointed  the  hopes  of 
his  chief.  He  failed  to  follow  the  battle  of  An- 
tietam  with  an  aggressive  movement.  Lee  was  suf- 
fered to  escape  with  his  beaten  army  unpursued, 
recross  the  Potomac,  and  return  to  Virginia.  The 
President  implored  his  general  to  move,  and  personally 
went  to  see  him  in  his  camp.  After  several  weeks 
of  waiting,  and  facing  another  season  of  inaction, 
Lincoln  relieved  him  of  his  command,  and  McClellan 
parted  forever  with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

The  succeeding  winter,  the  second  of  the  war, 
was  the  darkest  in  the  life  of  the  nation  since  Valley 
Forge.  The  elections  in  November  were  a  rebuke 
to  the  administration.  Confederate  cruisers  were 
banishing  American  merchant  ships  from  the  seas, 
while  Grant  seemed  to  be  battling  against  nature 
herself  in  the  swamps  about  Vicksburg. 

Loud  cries  of  dissatisfaction  arose  in  the  North. 
Men  came  to  Lincoln  clamoring  for  changes  in 
commanders  and  plans  and  policies.  "Gentle- 
men," he  said  to  one  delegation  of  advisers,  "sup- 
pose all  the  property  you  were  worth  was  in  gold, 
and  you  had  put  it  in  the  hands  of  Blondin  to  carry 

230 


IN   THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

across  the  Niagara  River  on  a  rope.  Would  you 
shake  the  cable  or  keep  shouting  at  him,  'Blondin, 
stand  up  a  little  straighter  —  Blondin,  stoop  a  little 
more  —  go  a  little  faster  —  lean  a  little  more  to 
the  north  —  lean  a  little  more  to  the  south'?'  No, 
you  would  hold  your  breath  as  well  as  your  tongue, 
and  keep  your  hands  off  until  he  was  safe  over. 
The  government  is  carrying  an  enormous  weight. 
Untold  treasures  are  in  our  hands;  we  are  doing 
the  very  best  we  can.  Don't  badger  us.  Keep 
silence,  and  we  will  get  you  safe  across." 

In  this  period  of  perplexity,  he  often  sought  the 
only  relief  and  refuge  open  to  him,  and  turned  away 
his  heavy  cares  and  wearisome  callers  with  a  jest. 

A  member  of  Congress  who  had  gone  to  him 
burdened  with  complaints,  indignantly  objected 
when  the  President  started  to  tell  him  a  story. 
"Mr.  President,"  the  member  said,  leaping  to  his 
feet,  "I  beg  your  pardon,  but  I  did  not  come  here 
this  morning  to  hear  a  story."  A  look  of  pain  came 
in  Lincoln's  face.  "I  have  great  confidence  in  you," 
he  said,  "and  great  respect  for  you,  and  I  know 
how  sincere  you  are;  but  if  I  couldn't  tell  these 
stories,  I  should  die."  The  Congressman's  wrath 
was  turned  to  a  new  sympathy  by  this  confession. 

As  the  discontent  deepened  among  the  leaders, 
there  were  strong  men  who  came  to  the  conclusion 

231 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


that  a  change  must  be  made  in  the  Presidency  itself. 
A  movement  was  suggested,  having  for  its  object 
the  enforced  resignation  of  Lincoln,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  Vice-president  Hamlin.  In  the  late 
winter  and  early  spring  the  feeling  was  intensified 
by  fresh  disasters.  Lincoln  did  not  bend  to  the 
gale.  In  such  an  hour  the  courage  of  the  man  was 
the  salvation  of  the  Union.  Behind  a  brave  front, 
and  beneath  a  flippant  speech,  his  heart  was  heavy 
with  grief.  Shadows  of  sorrow  enveloped  him. 
"I  shall  never  be  happy  any  more,"  he  said.  "My 
life  springs  are  wearing  out,  and  I  shall  not  last." 

He  had  found  no  general  who  would  act  on  his 
own  responsibility.  The  conduct  of  military  opera 
tions  was  thrown  upon  his  shoulders,  and  twice 
he  had  personally  gone  to  the  front.  The  Army 
of  the  Potomac  lost  the  battles  of  Fredericksburg 
and  Chancellorsville,  and  once  more  the  unconquered 
Lee  was  pressing  northward. 

As  Lincoln  held  the  fateful  message  from  Chan- 
cellorsville in  his  hand,  his  face  was  gray  with  agony. 
"My  God!  my  God!"  he  cried  in  broken  tones, 
"what  will  the  country  say  ?  What  will  the  country 
say?"  All  night  he  paced  the  floor,  not  in  despair, 
but  in  his  anxious  searching  for  a  way  out  of  the 
darkness.  When  the  clerks  came  to  his  office  in 
the  morning,  they  found  him  with  sleepless  eyes, 

23  2 


IN   THE   GLOOM   OF   DEFEAT 

eating  his  breakfast  at  his  desk,  and  beside  him 
the  instructions  to  Hooker  which  he  had  thought 
out  and  written  down  in  the  long  watches  he  had 
kept  alone  on  the  deck  of  the  storm-beaten  ship  of 
state. 


233 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

A    BREAK    IN    THE    CLOUDS 


Lee's  invasion  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  summer  of  1863.  —  Lincoln's 
order  to  the  army  to  pursue  the  enemy.  —  The  great  battle 
of  the  war  at  Gettysburg,  July  1,  2,  3,  a  victory  for  the  Union. 
—  Lee's  retreat.  —  Grant's  long  struggle  for  Vicksburg,  and 
its  surrender  July  4.  —  "The  'Father  of  Waters'  goes  unvexed 
to  the  sea."  —  The  draft.  —  The  draft  riots  in  New  York, 
July  13,  14,  15,  16.  —  Lincoln  and  the  "Copperheads."  — 
His  hatred  of  tyranny.  —  His  modesty.  —  The  victories  around 
Chattanooga,  November  24,  25,  28.  —  Lincoln's  Gettysburg 
address,   November    19,    1863. 

The  war  had  been  in  progress  more  than  two 
years,  when  Lee,  with  easy  confidence,  left  the  de- 
fences of  Richmond,  and  at  the  head  of  the  ever 
victorious  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  bore  the  stars 
and  bars  of  the  South  into  the  North. 

The  great  captain  of  the  Confederacy  had  so 
readily  overthrown  in  turn  each  champion  of  the 
Union  who  had  been  sent  against  him  that  the  foe 
no  longer  inspired  his  respect.  He  resolved  to  carry 
the  war  into  the  enemy's  country,  strike  terror  to  the 
prosperous  population  of  the  free  states,  deal  the 
Union  a  staggering  blow  on  the  heart,  unfurl  his 
colors  above  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  and  dictate 
a  final  peace  to  a  prostrate  nation, 

$34 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


As  Lee's  mighty  columns  swept  upward,  Hooker, 
in  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  proposed 
to  swoop  down  on  Richmond  and  take  the  exposed 
capital  of  the  Confederacy.  Lincoln,  however, 
instantly  rejected  this  plan,  without  losing  a  minute 
for  consultation  with  military  advisers.  Guided  by 
his  own  common  sense,  he  told  Hooker  that  Lee's 
army,  and  not  Richmond,  should  be  his  point  of 
attack. 

He  argued  that  the  city  could  not  be  captured  in 
less  than  twenty  days.  In  all  that  time,  Lee  would 
have  a  free  hand  in  his  invasion.  Moreover,  Rich- 
mond was  worth  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
capture  or  defeat  of  the  Confederate  army.  "  Follow 
on  his  flank,"  Lincoln's  order  ran,  "and  on  his 
inside  track,  shortening  your  lines  while  he  lengthens 
his."  No  decision  in  the  war  was  more  important 
than  this,  or  more  fruitful  of  results. 

Hooker  pursued  Lee  across  Maryland.  The 
Confederates  entered  Pennsylvania  unchallenged, 
however,  and  seventy-five  thousand  southern  soldiers 
trod  the  free  soil  of  the  Keystone  State.  At  one 
time  their  cavalry  dashed  up  to  the  picket  lines  of 
Harrisburg.  Both  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia  were 
thrown  into  panic.  Labor  ceased  in  those  busy 
centers  of  northern  industry,  and  the  laborers  were 
marshaled  for  defence. 

235 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


At  the  height  of  the  black  crisis,  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  was  left  leaderless.  General  Hooker 
resigned  the  command  in  a  military  quarrel. 
The  country  stood  appalled.  Lincoln  and  Stanton 
hastened  to  place  General  Meade  at  the  head  of 
the  forces. 

The  new  commander  grasped  the  reins  with  des- 
perate energy,  and  with  his  ninety  thousand  men  fol- 
lowed the  invaders  into  Pennsylvania  so  swiftly  that 
Lee  was  compelled  to  turn  about  and  face  him  at 
the  village  of  Gettysburg,  only  a  few  miles  from 
the  Maryland  line.  There  for  three  days,  in  wheat 
fields  and  peach  orchards,  across  lovely  valleys  and 
up  gentle  hills,  the  two  great  armies  fought  an  im- 
mortal battle  with  the  life  of  the  Union  as  the  stake. 

The  opening  shock  of  the  gigantic  combat  occurred 
on  the  first  day  of  July,  and  when  night  fell,  victory 
again  was  with  the  sword  of  Lee.  The  second 
day  dawned  upon  the  rival  hosts  facing  each  other 
from  opposite  heights,  with  a  valley  hardly  a  mile 
wide  between  them.  Another  night  found  the  Union 
army  holding  its  ground,  but  with  nearly  twenty 
thousand  of  its  men  dead  or  wounded. 

A  little  after  noon  of  the  third  day,  while  the 
foemen  watched  in  silence,  the  Confederates  sud- 
denly opened  a  furious  bombardment  with  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  guns.     For  an  hour  and  a  half 

236 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


the  terrible  roar  of  the  cannonading  lasted,  and 
then  stillness  again  until  Pickett  rode  out  to  the 
crown  of  Seminary  Ridge,  which  the  Confederates 
held,  and  with  fifteen  thousand  men  in  gray  behind 
him  paraded  down  the  slope.  Across  the  valley 
they  charged,  their  banners  flying,  beneath  a  mad- 
dening hail  of  iron  from  the  Union  batteries. 

With  ranks  frightfully  thinned  but  unwavering, 
they  began  the  climb  up  Cemetery  Ridge,  looking 
into  the  smoking  muzzles  of  the  enemy.  Even  at 
musket  range,  the  survivors  pressed  on  until  a  Con- 
federate officer  with  a  hundred  men  had  vaulted 
the  stone  wall  in  front  of  the  Union  forces,  and 
borne  the  battle  flags  of  the  South  to  the  very 
crest  of  Cemetery  Ridge.  There  the  little  band  of 
Southerners  paused  for  a  moment  in  the  midst  of 
their  foes;  the  battle  tide  of  the  Confederacy  had 
come  to  its  flood. 

The  bugle  sounded  retreat,  and  the  broken 
brigade  fell  back,  while  the  men  in  blue  who  held 
the  Ridge  mingled  with  their  proud  rejoicing  a 
hearty  admiration  for  the  gallantry  of  their  fellow- 
Americans  in  gray.  As  Pickett's  brave  band, 
now  pitifully  few  in  numbers,  returned  to  Seminary 
Ridge  and  flung  themselves  at  the  feet  of  their  com- 
rades, Lee  sadly  confessed,  "All  this  has  been  my 
fauk;    it  is  I  who  have  lost  the  fight." 

237 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


For  the  Confederacy  had  lost  the  battle  of  Gettys- 
burg and  its  great  stake.  The  Union  was  saved. 
The  next  day  was  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  the  North 
kept  it  as  a  thanksgiving,  while  Lee  with  his  shattered 
army  turned  his  face  southward  to  make  his  last 
stand  in  front  of  Richmond. 

When  General  Meade  failed  to  press  his  advantage 
and  smash  or  capture  the  invading  army  before  it 
could  recross  the  Potomac,  Lincoln's  disappoint- 
ment clouded  his  enjoyment  of  the  victory.  He 
entreated  the  General  not  to  let  Lee  escape.  The 
General  and  his  corps  commanders,  however,  in 
the  reaction  from  the  terrible  strain  under  which 
they  had  been  working  throughout  the  momentous 
campaign,  did  not  care  for  more  fighting  at  once. 

On  hearing  of  their  decision  in  council,  Lincoln 
blamed  himself  for  not  having  taken  the  field  in 
person,  in  an  effort  to  crush  Lee,  thus  hastening 
the  end  of  the  war.  When  Meade  expressed  his 
satisfaction  that  the  enemy  in  its  retreat  was  no 
longer  on  our  soil,  the  President  complained,  "Why 
will  not  our  generals  get  that  notion  out  of  their 
heads?     All  American  soil  is  ours!" 

While  watching  and  urging  the  movement  which 
came  to  its  climax  at  Gettysburg,  Lincoln's  heavy 
anxiety  was  greatly  increased  by  the  long  campaign 
which  Grant  was  making  against  Vicksburg.     From 

238 


A   BREAK  IN   THE   CLOUDS 


midwinter  to  midsummer,  the  unresting  victor  of 
Fort  Donelson,  "Unconditional  Surrender"  Grant, 
as  he  had  been  admiringly  called,  struggled  to  cap- 
ture that  citadel  of  the  Confederacy.  He  moved 
down  the  Mississippi,  from  which,  however,  he  could 
not  assault  Vicksburg,  perched  on  the  frowning  brow 
of  a  lofty  bluff.  It  could  be  successfully  attacked 
only  in  the  rear,  which,  moreover,  could  not  be 
reached  from  the  north  where  Grant's  soldiers  were, 
because  a  vast  watery  jungle  lay  between  it  and 
them.     The  only  approach  was  from  the  south. 

To  go  below  by  way  of  the  river,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  run  past  the  powerful  batteries.  Gunboats 
tried  to  pick  their  way  along  small  streams,  but  the 
vigilant  enemy  succeeded  in  blocking  the  narrow 
and  crooked  course  by  felling  trees  across  it,  and 
by  posting  sharp-shooters  in  the  dense  woods  that 
lined  the  shores. 

Many  weeks  were  spent  in  desperate  and  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  to  solve  the  hard  problem.  The 
bayous  and  swamps  surrounding  the  place,  the  sud- 
den rises  in  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the 
ingenuity  of  the  enemy  baffled  Grant's  every  efforto 
Meanwhile  his  army  clung  to  the  levee,  or  bank  of 
the  river,  as  the  only  bit  of  dry  ground  for  its  en- 
campment. Its  tents  stretched  in  a  thin  line  along 
the  Mississippi  for  seventy  miles. 

239 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Disease  broke  out  among  the  men;  the  North 
became  discouraged.  The  demand  for  a  new  com- 
mander grew  until  it  seemed  to  be  almost  unani- 
mous. Grant  had  not  been  a  Republican,  and  was 
without  influential  friends  at  Washington.  He  was 
a  stranger  to  the  country  at  large.  Lincoln,  who 
had  never  seen  the  man,  was  nearly  alone  in  stand- 
ing by  him  in  his  hour  of  trial,  stoutly  resisting 
the  loud  cry  for  his  removal. 

When  all  other  plans  had  failed,  Grant  determined 
upon  a  bold  movement.  He  marched  his  men  down 
the  levee,  but  his  horses  and  their  provender,  his 
wagons  and  artillery  could  not  move  by  that  nar^ 
row  path.  He  therefore  loaded  them  on  transports* 
and  in  the  darkness  of  night  the  boats  ran  by  tht 
blazing  cannon  of  Vicksburg.  For  two  hours  they 
were  under  fire  as  they  steamed  around  the  bend 
in  the  river.  Nevertheless,  the  passage  was  made 
with  only  slight  losses. 

With  his  men  and  his  supplies  now  safely  below 
the  forts,  Grant  opened  his  campaign  upon  the  rear 
of  Vicksburg,  completely  cutting  himself  off  from 
his  base  and  living  on  the  country.  He  had  first  to 
encounter  a  protecting  army  of  the  enemy  and  beat 
it.  In  the  course  of  this  task  he  took  the  city  of 
Jackson,  Mississippi,  and  hoisted  the  stars  and 
stripes    yver  the   Capitol  of  the   state  of  Jefferson 

2/0 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


Davis.  Then  he  began  the  siege  of  Vicksburg  in 
the  almost  tropical  heat  of  a  southern  summer. 

The  place  was  so  well  fortified  that  it  could  not 
be  taken  by  storm,  and  the  besiegers  crept  upon 
their  long-sought  prize  inch  by  inch  as  they  mined 
and  burrowed  in  the  earth.  The  advance  was  made 
through  trenches  and  tunnels,  until  Vicksburg  was 
entirely  surrounded  and  cut  off,  with  the  Union 
gunboats  controlling  the  river  in  front,  and  Grant's 
army  investing  it  in  the  rear.  Yet  it  gallantly  stood 
by  its  guns  until  it  was  face  to  face  with  starva- 
tion. Not  another  morsel  of  food  could  its  garrison 
obtain. 

The  boats  on  the  river  and  the  batteries  in  the 
rear  shelled  the  city  night  and  day.  Its  people 
dug  caves,  as  the  only  shelters  from  the  incessant 
rain  of  deadly  fire,  and  men,  women,  and  children 
lived  in  them. 

At  last  the  famishing  and  battered  town  could  no 
longer  withstand  the  siege,  and  a  white  flag  fluttered 
from  the  Confederate  parapet.  The  commander, 
Pemberton,  was  a  northern  man,  a  Pennsylvanian, 
who  had  resigned  from  the  United  States  army  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  cast  his  lot  with  the 
South.  He  and  Grant  had  met  in  a  happier  time, 
in  the  campaign  in  Mexico.  Their  acquaintance 
was  renewed  in  the  shade  of  an  oak  tree,  where 
*  241 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


they  discussed  the  terms  of  surrender.  The  next 
day,  the  Fourth  of  July,  while  all  the  North  was 
glad  for  its  deliverance  at  Gettysburg,  the  flag  of 
the  Confederacy  was  lowered  on  the  heights  of 
Vicksburg,  the  city's  brave  defenders  stacking  their 
arms  and  marching  out  past  the  men  of  the  con- 
quering army  of  Grant,  whose  rejoicing  was  silenced 
in  their  respect  for  a  worthy  foe. 

Lincoln  listened  day  and  night  for  the  news. 
"Nothing  from  Grant  yet!"  he  exclaimed  as  he 
ran  through  the  despatches  late  one  night.  "Why 
don't  we  hear  from  Grant  ?  I  shall  stay  up  until 
I  hear  something."  There  was  no  telegraph  to 
Vicksburg,  and  the  precious  message  had  to  be  sent 
up  the  river  to  Illinois  by  steamer  before  it  could 
be  placed  on  the  wires  for  Washington. 

When  at  last  it  came,  Lincoln  felt  richly  rewarded 
for  his  vigilance.  The  nation  burst  into  joy.  The 
White  House  was  serenaded  for  the  first  time  since 
the  cloud  of  war  settled  upon  it.  "  I  am  very  glad 
indeed  to  see  you  to-night,"  Lincoln  said  to  the 
jubilant  throng  from  a  window,  "and  yet  I  will  not 
say  I  thank  you  for  this  call ;  but  I  do  most  sincerely 
thank  God  Almighty  for  the  occasion  on  which  you 
have  called." 

In  a  few  days  a  freight  steamer  passed  in  peace 
down  the  Mississippi  from  St.  Louis  to  New  Orleans. 

242 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


When  the  people  of  the  upper  valley  met  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  to  celebrate  the  reopening  of  their 
great  natural  highway,  Lincoln  sent  to  the  meeting 
a  letter  inspired  by  a  grateful  heart.  "The  'Father 
of  Waters'  again  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea,"  so  ran 
the  fine  keynote  which  he  struck,  this  one-time  flat- 
boatman  who  had  floated  on  its  broad  bosom  in 
his  youth.  He  warned  the  country,  however,  not 
to  be  "over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph. " 

The  war  was,  indeed,  far  from  ended.  Even  on 
the  heels  of  victory,  the  draft  began.  Until  now 
the  ranks  of  the  immense  armies  had  been  filled 
entirely  by  volunteers,  encouraged  by  the  liberal 
bounties  which  many  states  offered  to  those  who 
enlisted.  Under  the  great  drain  on  the  fighting 
strength  of  the  North,  and  the  long  series  of  disasters 
in  the  summer  and  winter  of  1862,  the  martial 
spirit  of  the  people  was  at  last  exhausted.  Warfare 
was  no  longer  a  holiday  pastime.  Volunteering 
ceased,  and  no  recruits  came  forward  to  take  the 
places  of  the  thousands  who  fell  in  battle  or  were 
stricken  by  disease. 

The  furnishing  of  supplies  to  the  army,  and  the 
large  output  of  paper  money,  had  brought  on  a 
business  boom.  Labor  was  in  strong  demand,  and 
wages  were  high.  There  was  every  temptation  for 
men  to  stay  at  home  and  work. 

243 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


The  government  was  driven  to  draft  its  soldiers, 
to  compel  men  to  join  the  army.  Agents  of  the 
War  Department  knocked  at  every  door  in  the  land, 
and  enrolled  the  names  of  all  citizens  of  military 
age.  In  each  district  these  names  were  written  on 
separate  slips  of  paper.  A  man  blindfolded  drew 
forth  one  paper  at  a  time,  and  read  the  name  which 
it  bore.  Any  one  whose  slip  was  drawn  must  go 
into  the  army  for  three  years  or  pay  a  forfeit  of 
three  hundred  dollars. 

This  privilege  of  buying  off  excited  indignation 
among  the  poorer  people  of  New  York  City,  who 
denounced  it  as  an  act  of  favoritism  toward  the  rich, 
and  it  was  also  believed  that  unfair  demands  were 
made  on  the  districts  where  laboring  men  lived. 
A  wild  riot  broke  out,  and  for  nearly  four  days 
the  city  was  in  the  hands  of  a  furious  mob,  who 
killed  and  burned  and  robbed.  Business  was 
brought  to  a  standstill.  The  uprising  was  not 
suppressed  until  the  dead  and  wounded  numbered 
a  thousand,  and  the  property  loss  amounted  to  two 
million  dollars.  Ten  thousand  troops  were  massed 
in  the  city  when  the   draft  was  resumed  in   peace. 

Lincoln  was  unusually  distressed  by  this  outbreak 
among  the  working  people,  for  whom  more  than 
all  else  he  was  striving  to  save  the  Union.  They 
quietly   obeyed   the   hard   law   generally,   howerer, 

244 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


throughout  the  country.  The  brighter  prospects  of 
the  success  of  the  Union  arms  which  Gettysburg 
and  Vicksburg  held  out,  and  the  earnest  work  of 
the  states,  revived  the  spirit  of  volunteering,  and 
it  proved  not  to  be  necessary  after  all  to  draft  a 
very  large  number  of  soldiers. 

At  all  times,  Lincoln's  difficulties  in  the  North 
were  only  second  to  his  difficulties  at  the  South. 
It  was  not  his  fortune  to  lead  a  united  people  against 
a  foreign  foe.  The  war  was  between  brethren  of 
a  common  country  and  on  home  soil.  As  in  the 
beginning,  opinion  in  the  North  was  divided  on 
the  question  of  going  to  war,  so  it  remained  divided 
on  the  question  of  continuing  the  war. 

A  large  section  of  the  party  in  opposition  to  the 
Republicans,  while  standing  on  its  right  and  its 
duty  to  criticise  the  political  measures  of  the  ad- 
ministration, loyally  sent  its  members  to  the  front 
by  the  tens  of  thousands  and  elected  representatives 
to  Congress,  who  supported  the  army  in  the  field. 
The  Secretary  of  War  himself  and  many  of  the 
foremost  generals  were  drawn  from  this  great  body 
of  patriotic  Democrats,  without  whose  devotion, 
often  under  trying  circumstances,  the  Union  could 
not  have  been  saved. 

There  was  a  faction,  on  the  other  hand,  which 
took  the  position  that  the  Union  could  be  restored? 

245 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


not  by  force,  but  only  by  compromise.  The  members 
of  this  faction  were  called  "Copperheads/*  because 
some  of  them  had  cut  from  copper  one-cent  pieces 
the  head  of  liberty,  and  worn  it  as  a  pin. 

This  faction,  sometimes  operating  in  secret  societies, 
was  far  more  exasperating  than  influential  in  its 
extreme  hostility  to  the  administration  and  the  war. 
Lincoln  showed  little  disposition  to  repress  the 
Copperheads,  or  even  notice  them.  Subordinates, 
however,  not  gifted  with  the  President's  temper, 
were  often  stung  to  strike  at  them  and  in  their  zeal 
against  them  to  violate  the  right  of  free  speech 
and  the  principles  on  which  the  republic  rested. 
Newspapers  were  suppressed,  arbitrary  arrests  were 
made,  and  men  locked  up  in  military  forts  without 
charge  or  trial,  and  on  mere  suspicion. 

Although  convinced  that  to  save  the  Union  he 
could  rightfully  disregard  the  Constitution  itself,  and 
all  the  guaranteed  rights  of  citizens,  Lincoln  did  not 
enjoy  the  exercise  of  the  despotic  authority  which 
he  held  in  his  hands.  He  hated  and  dreaded  to  put 
it  forth.  He  himself  never  attacked  an  individual, 
or  sought  to  injure  any  man  in  body  or  estate.  It 
has  been  truly  said  that  he  abused  his  tyrannical 
power  only  to  pardon,  and  on  the  side  of  mercy. 

Invested  with  the  greatest  authority  ever  reposed 
in  an  American,  he  remained,  throughout,  a  simple 

246 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


man  of  the  people.  Supreme  title  and  authority 
failed  to  exalt  or  change  him.  Even  with  a  million 
armed  men  under  his  command,  his  manner  was 
as  unaffected  and  modest  as  when  he  led  a  company 
of  fellow-rustics  from  New  Salem  in  the  Black 
Hawk  War.  While  guiding  generals  and  cabinet 
ministers,  he  never  could  bring  himself  to  use 
dictatorial  language. 

The  summer  of  1863  closed  with  the  Union 
forces  struggling  to  gain  the  natural  gateway  to 
the  South  through  the  mountains  of  Tennessee 
at  Chattanooga.  News  of  a  reverse  which  they 
suffered  reached  Lincoln  one  night  in  September 
while  he  was  lodging  in  a  cottage  at  the  Soldiers' 
Home,  near  Washington.  "I  have  feared  it,"  he 
said,  "for  several  days.  I  believe  I  feel  trouble  in 
the  air  before  it  comes. "  He  mounted  his  horse  and 
rode  to  the  city  in  the  moonlight,  to  take  measures 
for  reenforcing  the  army. 

A  few  weeks  later,  with  Grant  in  command,  the 
flag  of  the  nation  was  borne  through  a  series  of 
notable  successes  around  Chattanooga.  Lookout 
Mountain  was  won  by  a  "battle  in  the  clouds," 
and  Missionary  Ridge  was  inscribed  among  the 
great  victories  on  the  standards  of  the  Union. 

The  national  exultation  over  a  glorious  summer 
reached    its    climax    at    Gettysburg    in    November, 

247 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


when  a  multitude  of  people  met  to  dedicate  the 
burial-place  of  thirty-five  hundred  of  those  who 
fell  in  battle  there.  Edward  Everett  was  the  chosen 
orator,  but  the  President  had  been  invited  to  make 
"a  few  appropriate  remarks." 

Lincoln  had  no  time  for  special  preparation, 
and  seemed  indifferent  to  his  slight  part  in  the 
celebration.  He  wrote  half  of  his  speech  on  the 
day  before  he  left  Washington,  and  did  not  have  a 
chance  to  finish  it  until  he  was  in  Gettysburg  and 
about  to  start  for  the  cemetery.  The  closing  sen- 
tences were  hastily  scribbled  in  pencil,  and  then  he 
went  on  horseback  in  the  procession  to  the  scene 
pf  the  exercises,  where  one  hundred  thousand 
people  were  gathered. 

The  two  speakers  represented  the  extremes  in 
methods  of  culture.  Everett  had  been  favored 
with  every  facility  for  education,  which  universities 
at  home  and  abroad,  association  with  cultivated 
people  and  the  observations  of  travel  afford,  and 
his  learning  had  won  for  him  the  honor  of  the 
Presidency  of  Harvard  College. 

Lincoln's  schooling  had  been  limited  to  six  months 
in  a  tumble-down  cabin  in  the  wilderness,  while 
his  life  had  been  lived  among  an  unschooled  people. 
His  taste  for  literature  was  untrained,  and  had  been 
little  indulged.     "I  never  read  an  entire  novel  in 

248 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


my  life,"  he  once  confessed,  and  according  to  his  law 
partner,  Herndon,  he  "never  sat  down  and  read 
a  book  through."  His  two  favorites,  however,  — 
the  Bible  and  Shakespeare,  —  he  knew  well.  The 
former  lay  on  his  desk  in  the  White  House  always, 
while  he  made  it  a  rule  to  carry  a  volume  of  the 
great  English  bard  with  him  when  on  a  journey. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  speeches  of  these  men, 
so  different  in  their  training,  should  be  compared, 
and  Lincoln's  personal  friends  were  disturbed  by 
the  fear  that  he  had  not  prepared  himself  to  do  his 
best.  Everett  spoke  for  two  hours,  delivering  an 
address  of  unusual  beauty  and  eloquence,  after 
which  a  great  choir  sang  a  dirge.  Then  Lincoln 
rose  to  speak  the  closing  words. 

While  he  sat  on  the  speakers'  platform,  the  people 
standing  on  the  ground  had  been  unable  to  see  him. 
Now  as  he  lifted  himself  into  view  they  almost 
forgot  to  cheer,  in  their  eagerness  to  behold  "Father 
Abraham,"  whom  they  had  followed  in  storm  and 
sunshine.  They  tiptoed  to  look  upon  his  care-worn 
face,  full  of  the  woe  of  war,  while  for  a  moment  he 
stood  before  them  in  silence.  He  seemed  not  to 
return  their  gaze,  or  to  see  any  one  among  all  those 
thousands. 

When  he  spoke,  his  high,  penetrating  tones  carried 
his  words  to  the  outermost  fringe  of  the  vast  audi- 

249 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ence,  which  had  not  yet,  however,  become  attentive. 
He  held  his  hastily  written  manuscript  in  his  left 
hand,  and  merely  cast  a  glance  at  it  once.  In  less 
than  three  minutes  the  people  were  amazed  to  see 
him  disappear  from  their  view,  as  he  resumed  his 
seat.  He  had  finished  and  retired  before  a  pho- 
tographer, who  had  planned  to  make  a  negative 
of  the  imposing  scene,  could  adjust  his  camera. 

The  men  on  the  platform  who  had  settled  them- 
selves to  listen  to  a  speech  of  some  length,  had  not 
caught  the  force  of  the  little  he  said,  and  were  dis- 
appointed. "He  has  made  a  failure,"  Seward  said 
to  Everett,  "  and  I  am  sorry  for  it.  His  speech  was 
not  equal  to  him." 

Only  when  it  was  spread  on  the  printed  page  and 
taken  by  itself  apart  from  the  bustle  of  the  throng, 
was  it  recognized  as  an  immortal  masterpiece,  this 
wonderful  prose  poem :  — 

"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  con- 
ceived in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition 
that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  en- 
gaged in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated, 
can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle- 
field of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  por- 
tion of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  thos« 

250 


A   BREAK   IN   THE   CLOUDS 


who   here  gave  their   lives  that  that  nation   might 
live. 

"It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should 
do  this.  But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate, 
we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground. 
The  brave  men  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here, 
have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to 
add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note  nor  long 
remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  for- 
get what  they  did  here. 

"It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated 
here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought 
here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather 
for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remain- 
ing before  us  —  that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion  —  that  we 
here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have 
died  in  vain  —  that  this  nation  under  God,  shall 
have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  —  and  that  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people, 
shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Everett,  on  reading  this  address,  was  among  the 
first  to  see  its  quality.  "I  should  be  glad,"  he 
wrote,  "if  I  could  flatter  myself  that  I  came  as  near 
the  central  idea  of  the  occasion  in  two  hours  as 
you  did  in  two  minutes."     A  high  London  authority 

251 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ranked  it  with  the  noblest  classic  in  the  golden  age 
of  Greek  eloquence. 

The  speech  was  born  of  the  year  so  inspiring  to 
Lincoln,  who  at  last  had  been  permitted  to  see,  be- 
tween the  breaking  clouds,  "the  home  of  freedom," 
as  he  said  in  his  message  to  Congress  when  it  met 
in  December,  "disenthralled,  regenerated^  enlarged, 
and  perpetuated." 


*5* 


CHAPTER  XXV 


"don't  swap  horses  while  crossing  the  river" 


Lincoln's  campaign  for  reelection  in  1864,  in  a  season  of  doubt 
and  gloom.  —  "Anybody  but  Lincoln,"  the  cry  of  the  politicians, 
but  the  plain  people  would  have  no  one  else  for  their  candidate* 
—  Republicans  drop  their  party  name,  and  Lincoln  and  John- 
son nominated  on  a  Union  ticket  at  Baltimore,  June  8,  1864.  — 
"Don't  swap  horses,"  Lincoln's  watchword  for  the  country.— 
The  Confederate  raid  on  Washington,  under  General  Early, 
July  10. — The  capital  in  danger.  —  The  repulse,  July  12. — 
A  time  of  despair.  —  Gold  rose  to  $2.85,  July  16.  —  Another 
call  for  500,000  men.  —  "I  intend  to  go  down  with  my 
colors  flying."  —  Lincoln's  withdrawal  demanded  by  Republi- 
can leaders.  —  His  own  opinion,  August  23,  that  he  would 
be  defeated.  —  McClellan  nominated  for  President  by  the  Demo- 
crats, August  31.  —  "The  war  a  failure."  —  The  tide  turned  by 
Sherman's  and  Sheridan's  victories  in  September.  —  Lincoln 
triumphantly  reelected  November  8.  —  The  popular  vote, 
Lincoln,  2,216,067;  McClellan,  1,808,725.  —  The  electoral 
vote,  Lincoln  212;  McClellan  21.  —  The  Confederacy  doomed. 

In  some  respects  the  year  1864  was  the  hardest 
of  all  for  Lincoln.  Encouraged  by  the  victories 
of  the  preceding  summer,  public  opinion  looked 
for  a  speedy  ending  of  the  war  in  the  spring,  when 
the  armies  of  the  Union,  inspired  by  the  memory 
of  glorious  successes  and  under  Grant  as  General- 
in-chief,  left  their  winter  quarters  and  moved  upon 
the  enemy.     Nevertheless,   after  weeks    filled  with 

253 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


frightful  slaughter,  Lee  and  Johnston  still  bore  aloft 
the  defiant  banner  of  the  unconquered  Confederacy, 
and  the  North  was  disheartened. 

Drooping  spirits  were  revived  for  a  while  by 
Grant's  ringing  message,  "I  propose  to  fight  it  out 
on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  summer."  The  terrible 
sacrifices  in  the  battles  of  the  Wilderness,  Spott- 
sylvania,  and  Cold  Harbor,  however,  sent  a  shudder 
through  the  land.  In  forty  days,  Grant  had  lost 
fifty  thousand  men  battling  with  Lee  and  settled 
down  to  the  grim  siege  of  Petersburg.  At  the  same 
time,  Sherman  was  paying  for  every  inch  of  ground 
he  slowly  gained  against  Johnston  in  Georgia. 

In  a  season  of  doubt  and  gloom,  Lincoln  himself 
must  fight  a  battle  at  the  polls  for  his  reelection 
to  the  Presidency.  The  radicals  in  the  Republican 
party  were  in  open  revolt  against  him.  They  held 
a  National  Convention  and  nominated  John  C. 
Fremont  for  President. 

The  Republican  politicians  were  equally  opposed 
to  the  President.  "Anybody  but  Lincoln"  seemed 
to  be  the  well-nigh  unanimous  sentiment  among 
them.  He  himself  admitted  he  had  only  one  friend 
in  the  entire  House  of  Representatives  on  whom  he 
could  rely. 

The  leaders  did  not  complain  of  any  personal 
slight    at    Lincoln's    hands.     On    the    contrary,    h# 

254 


i'rom  the  collection  of  Frederick  H.  Meserve,  Esq.,  New  York  City 

One  of  the  Most  Interesting  of  All  Lincoln  Portraits 


"DON'T   SWAP   HORSES 


had  shown  rare  consideration  for  the  feelings  of 
all.  His  marvelous  temper  had  withstood  the  great 
strain  of  his  duties  and  troubles,  and  he  had  quarreled 
with  no  one.  Indeed,  the  natural  dignity  of  the 
man's  mind  was  such  as  to  restrain  him  from  enter- 
ing into  controversies.  He  would  not  turn  around 
to  repel  even  the  most  unjust  attack.  "If  the  end 
brings  me  out  all  right,  what  is  said  against  me 
won't  amount  to  anything,"  he  reasoned;  "if  the 
end  brings  me  out  wrong,  ten  angels  swearing  I 
was  right  would  make  no  difference." 

He  never  criticised,  complained,  or  explained. 
It  was  not  his  habit  to  discuss  his  associates  in  public 
life.  He  made  no  threats  against  individuals,  and 
took  no  revenges.  He  even  permitted  a  member 
of  his  cabinet,  Secretary  Chase,  to  be  a  candidate 
against  him  for  the  nomination. 

Lincoln's  opponents  objected  to  him  chiefly  be* 
cause  he  had  not  yet  conducted  the  war  to  a  success, 
and  because  he  was  not  as  much  of  a  partisan  as 
they  wished  to  see  in  the  White  House.  He  was 
ruled  by  his  conscience  and  not  by  a  caucus.  He 
would  be  bound  to  no  faction,  but  insisted  on  keep- 
ing his  hands  free  to  serve  the  whole  people. 

Once  he  illustrated  his  position  in  this  respect 
with  a  "little  story."  It  was  of  a  roving  family 
who  were  so  much  on  the  move  that  their  chickens 

255 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


would  lie  on  their  backs  and  cross  their  legs,  ready 
to  be  tied,  whenever  they  saw  the  wagon  brought 
out.  "  Now,"  Lincoln  explained  by  way  of  a  moral 
for  the  tale,  "if  I  were  to  listen  to  every  committee 
that  comes  in  at  that  door,  I  might  just  as  well  cross 
my  hands  and  let  you  tie  me." 

In  the  midst  of  war,  with  the  life  of  the  nation 
in  jeopardy,  party  with  him  was  only  a  means  to 
an  end.  His  devotion  to  the  Union  rose  above 
everything  else.  Former  Democrats  were  in  a 
majority  in  his  cabinet,  and  McClellan,  Burnside, 
Meade,  and  Grant  among  his  generals  were  not 
regarded  as  Republicans.  He  forgot  party  preju- 
dices, and  even  his  own  personal  feelings  in  his 
passion  for  the  Union. 

When  he  heard  of  an  order  driving  a  general  out 
of  the  army  for  having  made  a  speech  in  support 
of  the  Democratic  candidate,  McClellan,  the  Presi- 
dent stopped  it.  "Supporting  General  McClellan 
for  the  Presidency,"  he  said,  "is  no  violation  of 
army  regulations,  and  as  a  question  of  taste  in 
choosing  between  him  and  me,  —  well,  I'm  the 
longest,  but  he's  better-looking." 

As  soon  as  the  masses  of  Lincoln's  party  were 
heard  from,  it  was  clearly  seen  that  their  faith  in 
him  had  not  been  weakened  by  his  critics,  and  that 
they  would  not  accept  any  other  leadership.     Little 

256 


DON'T   SWAP   HORSES—" 


by  little  his  character  had  gained  the  solid  respect 
of  intellectual  men  and  the  confidence  of  the  business 
world.  The  people,  the  plain  people,  as  he  liked 
to  call  them,  however,  had  been  drawn  to  him  by 
instinct  as  to  their  own.  They  were  the  first  to 
trust  in  his  wisdom,  his  common  sense,  and  to 
recognize  his  power  to  lead. 

Now,  in  the  thick  of  the  cries  and  plots  of  hostile 
politicians,  the  voice  of  the  people  was  lifted  in  his 
behalf,  and  the  mutterings  of  the  opposition  were 
drowned  in  its  mighty  volume.  Legislatures  and 
conventions  East  and  West  declared  for  his  re- 
nomination,  with  a  unanimity  that  left  no  room 
for  doubt. 

When  the  National  Convention  met,  it  reflected 
his  spirit.  The  delegates  dropped  their  party 
designation  entirely.  They  did  not  nominate  him 
on  a  Republican,  but  on  a  Union  ticket,  and  they 
chose  Andrew  Johnson,  a  Democrat,  as  the  candidate 
for  Vice-president.  The  only  excitement  manifested 
in  the  proceedings  was  aroused  by  the  politicians 
who  strove  for  the  honor  of  seconding  Lincoln's 
name. 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  Convention,  a  dele- 
gation  of    the   National    Union    League   called    at 
the  White  House  to  congratulate  the   President,  and 
it  was  on  this   occasion    that   he   mad?   a   remark 
s  257 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


now  so  familiar.  "  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  suppose," 
Lincoln  said,  "that  either  the  Convention  or  the 
League  have  concluded  that  I  am  either  the  greatest 
or  the  best  man  in  America,  but  rather  they  have 
concluded  it  is  not  best  to  swap  horses  while  cross- 
ing the  river,  and  have  further  concluded  that  I 
am  not  so  poor  a  horse  that  they  might  not  make 
a  botch  of  it  in  trying  to  swap." 

This  homely  maxim  sank  into  the  public  mind 
and  became  probably  the  most  potent  argument 
in  the  campaign.  "Don't  swap  horses  while  cross- 
ing the  river"  was  thenceforth  the  inspiring  watch- 
word. 

The  slow  and  desperate  struggle  on  the  battle- 
field continued  through  the  summer,  and  the  de- 
pression of  the  Republican  leaders  fell  to  its  lowest 
level.  Men  of  business,  too,  who  were  making 
fortunes  never  dreamed  of  before  in  this  country, 
grew  more  and  more  fearful  of  the  future.  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  if  the  stout  hearts  of  the  people 
were  much  affected  in  their  loyalty  to  Lincoln  and 
their  determination  to  sustain  the  war. 

A  Confederate  army  dashed  up  to  the  city  limits 
of  Washington  in  July  and  skirmished  in  full  view 
of  the  Capitol  dome,  the  work  of  finishing  which 
had  steadily  gone  on  by  Lincoln's  orders  throughout 
the  war.      The  city  was  caught  almost  defenceless, 

258 


DON'T   SWAP   HORSES-" 


Government  clerks  shouldered  guns  beside  the  few 
thousand  troops  available  to  repel  the  invader. 

The  President  himself  visited  the  firing  line  and 
was  in  sight  of  the  Confederates.  There  was  a 
panic  in  the  North  over  the  prospect  of  the  loss 
of  the  capital.  Gold  leaped  up  in  value  until  a 
gold  dollar  was  worth  two  dollars  and  eighty-five 
cents  in  paper  money.  Nothing  shook  Lincoln's 
patience  more  than  the  greed  which  led  men  to 
speculate  in  each  misfortune  that  overtook  the 
country.  "I  wish  every  one  of  them  had  his  devilish 
head  shot  off,"  he  exclaimed  in  unwonted  anger 
while  discussing  the  "gold  sharks"  with  the  Governor 
of  Pennsylvania. 

When  the  news  of  the  bold  invasion  reached 
Europe,  the  hopes  of  those  who  had  looked  for  the 
downfall  of  the  Union  were  revived.  Napoleon  III 
is  quoted  as  having  exulted  that  the  Confederacy 
would  surely  capture  Washington.  The  people  at 
the  capital  feared  it  would  have  to  be  abandoned, 
and  a  steamer  was  in  readiness  to  bear  the  Presi- 
dent and  cabinet  to  safety.  Happily,  reinforcements 
came  from  Grant,  and  the  Confederates  stole 
away. 

More  men  were  needed  by  the  armies,  and  Lin- 
coln determined  to  call  for  them.  Political  advisers 
begged  him  not  to  do  it,  as  they  feared   it  would 

259 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ruin  his  chance  of  reelection.  He  put  their  advice 
aside.  "It  is  not  a  personal  question  at  all,"  he 
replied.  "It  matters  not  what  becomes  of  me. 
We  must  have  the  men.  If  I  go  down,  I  intend 
to  go  like  the  Cumberland,  with  my  colors  flying." 

The  call  was  issued.  It  made  the  staggering 
demand  for  rive  hundred  thousand  men,  and  pro- 
vided for  drafting  them  in  September  if  the  states 
should  fail  to  provide  them  before  that  date. 

No  news  of  victory  came  from  the  front  in  those 
critical  weeks  of  the  early  summer.  Instead,  the 
wounded  and  the  sick  poured  into  Washington  in 
a  steady  stream.  Lincoln  could  not  go  from  the 
White  House  in  any  direction  without  passing  a 
hospital.  War-broken  men  hobbled  about  every- 
where. In  driving  to  his  summer  cottage  at  the 
Soldiers'  Home,  he  was  likely  to  come  upon  a  long 
line  of  ambulances,  filled  with  the  suffering. 

"I  cannot  bear  it,"  he  once  said  to  a  companion, 
as  he  turned  his  saddened  face  away  from  the  piti- 
ful scene.  "This  is  dreadful."  The  man  tried  to 
lighten  the  President's  spirits  by  assuring  him  that 
victory  would  surely  come.  "Yes,"  he  admitted, 
"victory  will  come,  but  it  comes  slowly." 

There  were  nights  not  a  few  when  he  could  not 
sleep.  "How  willingly  would  I  exchange  places 
with  a  soldier  who  sleeps  un  the  ground  in  the  Army 

260 


DON'T   SWAP   HORSES—" 


of  the  Potomac/ '  he  remarked  one  morning  with 
a  heavy  sigh,  as  he  took  up  the  duties  of  a  new  day. 

Physically  he  bore  the  burden  of  his  unceasing 
labors  like  the  giant  he  was.  He  was  so  tortured 
through  his  sympathies,  however,  that  he  looked 
in  his  face  like  a  broken-down  man.  His  heart 
seemed  to  be  weighted  with  all  the  woes  of  the  land, 
public  and  private.  Old  friends  seeing  him  after 
the  lapse  of  the  years  since  he  left  them  in  Illinois, 
were  shocked  by  the  deep  lines  which  time  had 
stamped  on  his  countenance.  He  did  not  hope  for 
anything  beyond  the  end  of  the  war ;  he  lived  only  in 
the  task  of  restoring  the  Union.  "I  shall  not  last 
long  after  it  is  over,"  he  told  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe. 

As  the  summer  wore  on  without  any  military 
successes  to  stimulate  the  public  mind,  Lincoln's 
reelection  grew  more  and  more  doubtful.  The 
Democrats  had  postponed  their  convention  until  the 
last  of  August,  but  McClellan  was  already  certain 
to  be  their  candidate  for  President.  At  last  the 
Republican  leaders  lost  all  hope.  Lincoln's  best 
friends  felt  obliged  to  tell  him  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  win. 

A  determined  movement  sprang  up  among  im- 
portant members  of  the  party  to  call  a  conference, 
and  urge  him  to  withdraw  from  the  hopeless  contest, 
and  permit  another  to  take  his  place.     Many  favored 

26t 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


substituting  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Charles  Sumner  had  regarded  himself 
as  a  confidant  of  the  President,  who  once  smilingly 
remarked,  "Sumner  thinks  he  runs  me."  As  the 
election  drew  near,  the  Massachusetts  Senator 
agreed  with  the  opposition,  and  washed  Lincoln 
would  see  that  patriotism  required  his  retirement, 
because  of  his  lack  of  "practical  talent  for  his  im- 
portant place." 

Lincoln,  however,  did  not  believe  anything  would 
be  gained  by  "swapping  horses,"  although  he  him- 
self finally  accepted  the  opinion  that  there  was 
little  prospect  of  his  own  success.  He  sat  down 
on  August  23,  wrote  out  a  resolution  which  he  had 
taken  in  secret,  and  sealed  it. 

"This  morning,"  so  this  strange  paper  ran,  "as 
for  some  days  past,  it  seems  exceedingly  probable 
that  this  administration  will  not  be  reelected. 
Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  so  cooperate  with  the 
President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  between  the 
election  and  the  inauguration,  as  he  will  have  secured 
the  election  on  such  ground  that  he  cannot  possibly 
save  it  afterwards." 

The  Democratic  National  Convention  held  its 
session  in  the  last  days  of  August,  and  nominated 
McClellan  on  a  platform  declaring  that  after  four 
y«ars  of  failure  in  the  struggle  to  restore  the  Union 

S62 


DON'T   SWAP   HORSES  — 


by  war,  the  time  had  come  for  a  cessation  of  hostilities 
and  an  effort  to  restore  it  by  peaceable  negotiation. 
This  was  a  view  held  by  many  men  at  the  time, 
including  not  a  few  influential  Republicans. 

Startling  events,  however,  coming  in  a  remarkable 
series,  quickly  and  completely  corrected  the  opinion 
that  the  war  was  a  failure.  Sherman  roused  the 
nation  by  this  message  from  Georgia  on  September  2, 
"Atlanta  is  ours  and  fairly  won." 

Only  a  few  days  before,  the  President,  by  direction 
of  Congress,  had  caused  a  day  to  be  set  apart  for 
"humiliation  and  prayer."  Now  he  called  on  the 
people  to  give  thanks.  After  hardly  more  than 
a  fortnight,  Sheridan  won  the  battle  of  Winchester 
in  the  Shenandoah.  Once  more  the  country  re- 
joiced. 

The  early  state  elections  foreshadowed  a  victory 
for  Lincoln  at  the  polls  in  November.  When  elec- 
tion night  came,  he  sat  in  the  War  Department 
until  the  morning  hours,  receiving  the  news  of  his 
success,  and  in  the  lulls  reading  aloud  the  humorous 
yarns  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  in  a  little  book  of 
yellow  paper  covers,  which  he  had  brought  with 
him  in  the  breast  pocket  of  his  coat. 

As  soon  as  his  reelection  was  assured,  he  re- 
membered Mrs.  Lincoln's  anxiety  and  said,  "Send 
the  word  riglit  over  to  Madam;    she  will  be  more 

263 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


interested  than  I  am."  It  was  found  on  the  com- 
plete returns  that  he  had  been  chosen  by  a  majority 
of  nearly  half  a  million  votes,  carrying  all  the  states 
remaining  in  the  Union  except  New  Jersey,  Dela- 
ware, and  Kentucky. 

Late  as  was  the  hour  when  he  returned  to  the 
White  House,  he  was  greeted  there  by  a  party  of 
serenaders.  All  feeling  of  personal  exultation  was 
lost  in  his  deep  satisfaction  that  the  people  had 
resolved  to  go  on  with  the  war  for  the  Union.  "It 
is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  triumph  over  any  one,"  he 
said  in  acknowledging  the  serenade. 

A  day  or  two  afterward  he  made  another  speech, 
in  which  he  pointed  out  the  value  of  the  experience 
through  which  the  country  had  passed,  showing  as 
it  did  that  a  popular  government  could  sustain 
a  national  election  while  under  the  strain  of  a  great 
civil  war.  "We  cannot  have  free  government  with- 
out elections,"  he  told  the  people.  "If  a  rebel- 
lion could  force  us  to  forego  or  postpone  a  national 
election,  it  might  fairly  claim  to  have  already  con- 
quered and  ruined  us." 

The  Union  went  on  in  its  triumph.  Sheridan 
through  the  fall  and  into  the  winter  cleared  the  val- 
ley of  the  Shenandoah  —  that  great  natural  avenue 
by  which  the  Confederacy  had  thrice  invaded  the 
North.     Sherman    marched    to    the    sea.     Thomas 

264 


"DON'T   SWAP   HORSES 


overwhelmed  and  utterly  dispersed  a  Confederate 
army  in  Tennessee.  Lee  was  foredoomed  to  defeat 
as  soon  as  spring  should  come. 

Lincoln's  eyes  beheld  the  dawn  of  peace,  and  all 
saw  the  new  light  that  was  in  them  as  he  turned 
'Com  the  sword  which  he  hated  to  the  olive  branch 
which  he  loved. 


2t>5 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

LIFE    IN   THE    WHITE    HOUSE 


How  the  Civil  War  was  brought  home  to  the  President  and  hi  > 
family.  —  Old  friends  who  wore  the  gray.  —  Lincoln's  tears 
for  a  fallen  Confederate  brigadier.  —  Mrs.  Lincoln's  brothers 
slain  under  the  Stars  and  Bars.  —  Heavy  shadows  in  the 
Executive  Mansion  relieved  only  by  Lincoln's  sense  of  humor. 

—  Four  years  with  no  vacations.  —  Lincoln's  religious  creed. 

—  His  simple  life  and  plain  manners  in  the  White  House.  — 
How  he  met  his  visitors,  and  how  he  dressed.  —  Evenings  with 
friends. — What  he  read.  —  Forgetting  his  meals.  —  His 
light  diet.  —  His  muscular  strength.  —  Open  house  to  the 
people.  —  His  "  public  opinion  baths."  —  His  democratic 
ideals  and  practices. 

The  full  meaning  of  the  Civil  War  was  brought 
home  to  the  Lincolns  in  the  White  House  as  much 
as  to  any  family  in  the  land.  To  multitudes  alike 
in  the  North  and  in  the  South  it  differed  little  from 
a  strife  with  a  foreign  nation.  Their  families  were 
not  divided  by  it,  and  they  never  were  called  upon 
to  sorrow  over  a  fallen  foe. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  battle  line  crossed  the 
very  hearthstone  of  the  President's  home.  The 
President  of  the  United  States  was  as  much  a 
Southerner  by  birth  as  the  President  of  the  Con- 
federate  States   himself,   since   both   were  born    in 

266 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

Kentucky.  Some  of  Lincoln's  oldest  and  dearest 
friends   wore  the  gray. 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  too,  was  a  Kentuckian  and  deeply 
attached  to  her  southern  kindred.  The  husband 
of  one  of  her  sisters,  Ben  Hardin  Helm,  had  been 
a  favorite  of  her  own  husband.  When  Lincoln 
became  President,  he  summoned  Helm  to  Wash- 
ington for  the  purpose  of  giving  him  a  place  of 
honor  under  the  administration.  On  his  return 
to  Kentucky,  a  major's  commission  was  forwarded 
to  him  by  the  President;  but  Helm  after  a  painful 
wrestle  with  his  doubts  went  with  the  South.  He 
showed  himself  a  brilliant  soldier  and  died  gallantly 
on  the  field  of  Chickamauga. 

There  is  a  story  that,  after  the  news  of  the  battle 
reached  Washington,  the  great  chieftain  of  the 
Union  was  found  in  bitter  tears,  weeping  over  the 
loss  of  this  Confederate  brigadier.  Not  only  were 
several  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's  sisters  parted  from  her  by 
the  war,  their  husbands'  hands  against  her  husband's 
cause,  but  some  of  her  brothers  as  well  were  in  the 
Confederate  service. 

While  the  duty  fell  to  her  to  open  a  grand  ball  in 
honor  of  the  Union  victory  at  Shiloh,  one  of  her 
brothers,  who  in  his  youth  has  been  the  darling  of 
her  heart,  lay  dead  on  that  battlefield  in  a  uni- 
form of  gray.     Another  brother  in  the  Confederacy 

267 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


fell  at  Vicksburg  and  was  dying  while  his  sister 
in  the  White  House  listened  to  the  shouts  of  re- 
joicing over  the  victory  of  Grant. 

With  the  affection  of  his  family  thus  torn  by 
a  fratricidal  strife,  and  with  his  mind  and  heart 
constantly  weighted  by  the  cares  of  the  distracted 
nation,  there  was  little  gayety  in  the  household  of 
the  President.  The  usual  official  banquets  and  recep- 
tions went  on  mechanically.  At  such  times  Lincoln 
stood  unweariedly  by  the  hour,  his  big  white-gloved 
hand  grasping  the  hands  of  the  passing  throng, 
but  all  the  while  his  eyes  looked  far  beyond  the 
scene,  as  they  followed  his  thoughts  to  the  trenches 
where  his  soldiers  were  battling  for  the  Union. 

He  seemed  neither  to  see  nor  to  hear  most  of  those 
whom  he  greeted  on  such  occasions.  No  chance, 
however,  was  lost  for  the  play  of  his  humor.  "Up 
our  way,"  an  old  man  said,  when  presented  at  one 
of  the  receptions,  "we  believe  in  God  and  Abraham 
Lincoln. "  The  President's  face  lighted  up  as  he 
replied,  "My  friend,  you  are  more  than  half  right." 

His  irrepressible  sense  of  humor  broke  through 
even  the  stiffest  ceremonials,  as,  for  instance,  when 
the  bachelor  Minister  of  Great  Britain,  Lord  Lyons, 
brought  the  very  formal  announcement  of  the  mar- 
riage of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  The  Minister  and  the 
President   played   their   perfunctory   parts  with  the 

268 


LIFE  IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

utmost  gravity,  the  former  obeying  the  command  of 
his  gracious  sovereign,  the  Queen,  to  make  known 
to  His  Excellency  the  happy  news  that  her  son,  the 
heir  apparent,  His  Royal  Highness,  Albert  Edward, 
etc.,  had  wedded  Her  Royal  Highness,  the  Princess 
Alexandra,  etc.,  of  Denmark. 

After  the  President  had  suitably  acknowledged 
the  receipt  of  the  information,  and  begged  that  his 
congratulations  be  presented  to  Her  Majesty,  to 
the  royal  bride  and  groom,  and  the  entire  British 
nation,  he  paused,  and  then  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye,  added,  "Lord  Lyons,  go  thou  and  do  likewise. " 

The  White  House  was  not  only  a  somber  place 
in  war  time,  but  there  was  little  or  no  opportunity 
for  Lincoln  to  escape  from  its  shadows.  His  was 
an  administration  without  vacations.  His  only  ref- 
uge through  four  hard  years  was  in  a  little  cottage 
at  the  Soldiers'  Home,  near  the  city. 

Sometimes  he  drove  and  sometimes  rode  between 
the  two  places.  Secretary  Stanton  insisted  on 
sending  a  mounted  guard  with  him,  their  drawn 
sabers  held  upright.  He  protested  time  and  again 
that  these  twenty-five  or  thirty  cavalry  outriders 
were  a  nuisance.  "They  make  such  a  noise,"  he 
said,  "Mrs.  Lincoln  and  I  cannot  hear  ourselves 
talk." 

Lincoln  never  felt  free  to  visit  his  home  in  Illinois, 

269 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


or  to  take  the  least  rest  from  his  great  task.  He 
went  to  the  front  a  few  times  to  see  his  generals, 
and  made  two  or  three  appearances  at  public  meet- 
ings in  the  interest  of  the  soldiers  at  near-by  places. 
Aside  from  these  rare  exceptions,  each  day  found 
him  at  his  post. 

One  day,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  who  was  making 
a  visit  at  the  White  House,  insisted  on  taking  him 
away  from  his  desk,  and  she  led  him  into  the  con- 
servatory, then  attached  to  the  mansion.  As  they 
walked  among  the  flowers,  he  confessed  he  never 
had  been  in  there  before.  The  truth  is,  this  man, 
in  whose  pathway  of  life  there  had  been  so  many 
thorns,  had  little  chance  to  cultivate  a  taste  for 
flowers. 

When  this  lady,  who  was  very  near  to  Lincoln, 
in  whose  home  he  had  courted  and  married,  and 
whose  gentle  control  over  his  wife  in  her  frequent 
nervous  disturbances  he  appreciated,  left  the  White 
House  to  return  to  her  family,  she  carried  with 
her  in  her  mind  "the  picture  of  the  man's  despair." 
Her  sympathetic  eye  penetrated  "beneath  what  the 
world  saw,"  as  she  said,  and  found  "a  nature  as 
tender  and  poetic  as  any  I  ever  knew." 

Although  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  occupied  a  pew 
in  a  Presbyterian  Church  in  Washington,  he  never 
was  a  member  of  any  church.     Theology  did  not 

270 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  H.  Meserve.  Esq.,  New  York  City 

Mary  Todd  Lincoln 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady  wnen  she  was  the  mistress  of  the  White  House 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

interest  him.  Religion  was,  his  wife  said,  "a  kind 
of  poetry  in  his  nature."  He  has  been  quoted  as 
saying  to  a  member  of  Congress,  who  inquired  why 
one  possessing  such  a  deep  reverence  and  such  a 
true  ideal  of  Christian  faith  and  morals,  had  not 
united  with  some  church,  "When  any  church  will 
inscribe  over  its  altar  as  its  sole  qualification  for 
membership  the  Saviour's  condensed  statement  of 
both  law  and  gospel,  'Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,'  that 
church  shall  I  join  with  all  my  heart  and  soul." 

Notwithstanding  Mrs.  Lincoln's  wayward  temper, 
her  husband  had  a  solid  respect  for  her  judgment. 
He  felt  a  special  reliance  on  her  intuition  regard- 
ing character,  and  in  choosing  men  he  sometimes 
accepted  what  he  regarded  as  her  superior  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  When  she  was  absent, 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  her  by  telegraph 
the  reports  of  battles  and  military  movements. 
iVthough  she  is  said  not  to  have  been  prudent  in 
money  matters,  he  never  denied  or  questioned  her 
wish  for  anything.  "You  know  what  you  want," 
he  would  say,  "go  get  it." 

They  lived  their  lives  in  Washington  as  simply 
as  they  could.  Their  servants  followed  the  free 
and  easy  example  set  before  them.     One  of  them 

271 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


has  been  handed  down  to  history  as  interrupting 
an  important  state  conference  by  opening  the  Presi- 
dent's door  and  saying,  "She  wants  you."  "Yes, 
yes,"  Lincoln  replied,  without  showing  any  sign 
of  annoyance.  The  conference  continuing,  however, 
the  door  was  soon  opened  again  and  the  servant 
repeated  with  emphasis,  "I  say,  she  wants  you." 

A  man  calling  by  appointment  one  Sunday 
morning  and  receiving  no  response  when  he  rang  the 
White  House  bell,  opened  the  door,  walked  up- 
stairs, and,  looking  in  vain  for  a  servant  to  announce 
him,  finally  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  President's 
office.  "Oh,"  explained  Lincoln,  "the  boys  are  all 
out  this  morning." 

Presidential  manners  never  were  acquired  by 
Lincoln.  He  had  formed  the  habit  of  early  rising 
when  he  lived  in  the  backwoods,  and  always  clung 
to  it.  One  morning  about  six  o'clock  a  passer-by  saw 
him  standing  in  the  White  House  gateway.  "Good 
morning,  good  morning,"  the  President  said,  "I  am 
looking  for  a  newsboy.  When  you  get  to  the  corner, 
I  wish  you  would  send  one  up  this  way." 

He  almost  invariably  wore  slippers,  in  order  to 
relieve  himself  of  the  long-legged  boots  of  the  time, 
and  except  in  the  appointed  hours  for  receiving 
callers,  he  was  likely  to  wear  a  dressing-gown,  as 
he  really  hated   clothes.     He    sometimes    appeared 

272 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

in  the  streets  wearing  a  faded  linen  duster,  and  in 
winter  he  often  protected  himself  on  going  out  by 
wrapping  a  gray  shawl  about  his  shoulders. 

He  knew  how  to  be  correct  in  deportment  when 
he  deemed  that  occasion  required  it.  A  man  who 
was  present  once  when  Charles  Sumner  called, 
has  described  the  manner  in  which  Lincoln  received 
that  self-conscious  statesman.  He  dropped  his  long 
leg  from  the  arm  of  the  chair  in  which  he  was 
slouching  at  ease,  rose  and  saluted  with  studied 
dignity  his  imposing  caller,  who  carried  a  cane, 
and  was  arrayed  in  a  brown  coat  and  fancy  waist- 
coat, checked  lavender  trousers,  and  a  striking  pair 
of  spats.  After  the  Senator  had  gone,  Lincoln  again 
relaxed  with  the  remark,  "When  with  the  Romans 
we  must  do  as  the  Romans  do." 

His  freest  hours  were  passed  among  friends  in  his 
office  in  the  evening,  when  he  told  stories  with  as 
hearty  an  enjoyment  of  their  humor  as  if  he  were 
again  in  the  lounging  room  of  a  tavern  on  the  old  cir- 
cuit. At  such  times  his  laughter  resounded  through 
the  White  House  with  a  true  ring,  and  care  seemed 
to  have  fled  the  place.  His  comradeship  ranged 
from  a  scientist  of  the  eminence  of  Professor  Joseph 
Henry  of  the  Smithsonian  Institute,  who  was  among 
the  earliest  in  Washington  to  appreciate  his  charac- 
ter, to  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  the  humorist. 
t  273 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Once  among  his  callers  came  an  elderly  man  from 
Indiana,  whom  he  quickly  recognized,  though  he  had 
not  seen  him  since  boyhood.  "You  are  John  A. 
Brackenridge,"  Lincoln  promptly  said;  "I  used  to 
walk  thirty -four  miles  a  day  to  hear  you  plead  law 
in  Booneville,  and  listening  to  your  speeches  first 
inspired  me  with  the  determination  to  be  a  lawyer." 

He  was  free  from  all  vanity  of  official  dignity. 
He  shrank  from  wearing  the  high  designation  of 
President,  and  referred  to  his  office  as  "this  place," 
"since  I  have  been  in  this  place,"  or  "since  I  came 
here."  Once  when  needing  to  speak  of  the  apart- 
ment reserved  in  the  Capitol  for  the  Chief  Magis- 
trate, he  shyly  said,  "that  room,  you  know,  that  they 
call  the  President's  room."  He  was  genuinely  an- 
noyed to  have  friends  from  Illinois  address  him 
as  "Mr.  President,"  and  often  pleaded,  "Now  call 
me  Lincoln,  and  I'll  promise  not  to  tell  of  the  breach 
of  etiquette." 

Dennis  Hanks,  his  old  co-laborer  in  the  woods 
of  Indiana  and  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois,  came  to 
see  him,  all  dressed  up  for  the  occasion,  and  Lin- 
coln quickly  placed  him  at  ease  and  on  the  equal 
footing  of  their  early  days  when  they  slept  together 
in  the  log-cabin.  Dennis  had  been  sent  to  influ- 
ence the  President  to  release  some  Copperheads  in 
Illinois,  who  had   been  in  a  riot  against  soldiers, 

274 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

and  Lincoln  gravely  summoned  Secretary  Stanton 
to  meet  his  visitor.  He  was  cordially  entertained, 
and  before  he  went  home  Lincoln  gave  him  a  watch 
suitably  engraved. 

In  the  course  of  a  visit  which  Lincoln  received 
from  the  old  friend  who  had  taken  him  in  when  he 
came  to  Springfield  without  money  enough  to  buy 
a  bed,  and  over  whose  store  he  slept,  two  women 
came  to  beg  the  President  to  release  from  jail  two 
men  who  had  been  arrested  for  resisting  the  draft. 
He  not  only  granted  their  request,  but  at  one  stroke 
of  his  pen  liberated  all  who  were  in  the  jail  with 
them  for  the  same  offence.  "These  fellows  have 
suffered  long  enough,"  he  said. 

As  one  of  the  women,  an  aged  mother,  was  leaving, 
she  said  to  him  simply,  "I  shall  probably  never 
see  you  again  until  we  meet  in  Heaven."  This 
remark  touched  the  President,  and  his  friend  told 
him  he  was  too  sensitive  and  nervous  a  man  to 
expose  himself  to  such  trying  scenes  every  day. 
"Things  of  the  sort  you  have  just  seen  don't  hurt 
me,"  Lincoln  protested;  "it  is  the  only  thing  to-day 
that  has  made  me  forget  my  condition  or  given  me 
any  pleasure."  Then  he  added,  "Die  when  I  may, 
I  want  it  said  of  me  by  those  who  know  me  best, 
that  I  always  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a  flower 
where  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow." 

275 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


While  Lincoln  read  little,  one  form  of  relief  for 
his  mind  was  to  read  aloud  to  two  or  three  friends. 
He  delighted  thus  to  read  from  Shakespeare,  and 
Holmes's  "Last  Leaf"  took  its  place  among  his 
favorites,  its  most  familiar  stanza  particularly  ap- 
pealing to  his  melancholy  mood :  — 

"The  mossy  marbles  rest 
On  the  lips  that  he  has  prest 

In  their  bloom; 
And  the  names  he  loved  to  hear 
Have  been  carved  for  many  a  yeir 
On  the  tomb." 

John  Hay,  one  of  his  secretaries,  said  Lincoln 
\/as  not  a  man  to  laugh  alone.  If  he  found  some- 
thing that  much  amused  him  in  a  volume  of  Tom 
Hood,  for  instance,  he  would  get  out  of  bed,  where 
he  often  read,  stalk  through  the  hall  in  his  night- 
clothes,  and  wake  up  his  secretary,  that  he  might 
read  aloud  the  passage  which  had  pleased  him. 
In  writing,  he  relied  on  his  ear  more  than  on  his 
eye.  It  was  his  custom  to  form  a  sentence  in  his 
mind  and  then  speak  it,  perhaps  in  a  whisper,  be- 
fore putting  it  on  paper. 

Lincoln's  office  was  almost  his  prison  cell  for 
four  years.  His  day  there  usually  began  as  early  as 
eight  o'clock  and  lasted  until  bedtime.  If  he  were 
not  at  his  desk,  it  was  safe  to  look  for  him  poring 

276 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

over  the  despatches  from  the  armies,  in  the  tele- 
graph office  of  the  War  Department,  which  he  fairly 
haunted. 

Often  he  did  not  leave  his  work  long  enough  to 
eat  his  meals.  When  he  went  to  the  dining  table, 
he  was  not  unlikely  to  sit  there  lost  in  thought, 
without  taking  note  of  what  he  ate.  He  could  not 
tell  as  he  left  his  breakfast  whether  he  had  drunk 
coffee  or  milk.  A  very  light  diet  sufficed  him, 
and  even  this  he  neglected.  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the 
servants  were  obliged  to  watch  him  to  see  that  he 
did  not  entirely  forget  to  eat,  and  when  he  failed 
to  come  to  the  dining  room,  they  would  send  a 
tray  to  him  in  his  office.  A  glass  of  milk  and  a  few 
crackers  or  a  little  fruit  satisfied  his  appetite. 

In  spite  of  his  carelessness  in  this  respect,  he 
kept  himself  in  remarkable  physical  condition. 
His  muscles  held  their  hardness.  He  could  grip  an 
axe  by  the  tip  end  of  its  handle  and  hold  it  out  even 
with  his  shoulder.  He  remained  always  a  hardy 
and  not  ungraceful  horseback  rider. 

From  the  windows  of  his  office  he  could  see  at 
first  the  Confederate  flags  flying,  but  later  the  dis- 
tant view  was  filled  with  the  white  tents  of  the  Union 
soldiers  on  the  hills  of  Virginia.  Near  by  stood 
the  unfinished  Washington  monument.  War  maps 
hung  on  the  walls,  and  his  table  was  covered  so  deep 

277 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


with  papers  that  it  was  not  always  possible  for  him 
to  find  room  to  rest  his  hand  while  signing  his  name 
to  a  document.  "I  am  like  the  Patagonians,"  he 
said  with  a  laugh  once,  as  he  hunted  for  a  place 
where  he  could  write.  "You  know  they  live  off* 
oysters  and  throw  the  shells  out  the  window.  When 
the  pile  of  shells  grows  so  high  as  to  shut  in  the  win- 
dow, they  simply  move  and  build  a  new  house." 

Notwithstanding  the  volume  of  business  trans- 
acted in  the  White  House  in  his  administration,  he 
never  found  fault  with  a  member  of  his  clerical  staff. 
He  was  content  to  work  longer  hours  than  any  sub- 
ordinate and  to  spare  every  one  but  himself. 

The  task,  which  to  many  would  have  been  the 
most  wearing,  was  to  him  the  most  welcome.  This 
was  the  task  of  receiving  the  people.  He  finished 
his  reception  to  privileged  persons,  senators,  rep- 
resentatives, and  officials  at  noon,  and  then  except 
on  the  two  cabinet  days  each  week  the  door  was 
thrown  open,  and  the  waiting  crowd  rushed  in 
from  the  hall,  the  anteroom,  and  the  stairway. 

In  the  motley  mass  were  office  seekers,  crippled 
veterans,  fathers  and  mothers  and  wives  of  soldiers 
in  trouble,  widows  and  orphans  of  those  who  had 
fallen  in  battle,  inventors  and  cranks  and  all  sorts 
of  advisers,  along  with  citizens  who  came  merely 
to  grasp  the  President's  hand  and  give  him  a  word  of 

278 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

good  cheer.  They  found  him  in  his  black  broadcloth 
suit,  sitting  in  his  arm-chair  beside  a  table  on  which 
a  Bible  lay. 

He  insisted  there  should  be  no  secrets.  "St. 
Helena  ?  Why,  we  don't  have  a  consul  there,"  he 
said  in  a  voice  heard  by  all,  as  he  replied  to  the 
whispers  of  an  eager  man  who  leaned  over  him. 
The  man  continued  to  whisper,  and  Lincoln  con- 
tinued to  tell  him  in  his  high-pitched  tone  that  he 
did  not  believe  there  was  such  an  office. 

"Yes,  there  is,"  the  old  messenger  of  the  White 
House  finally  broke  in  to  say,  from  his  position  be- 
side the  door.  "We  have  a  consul  at  St.  Helena, 
and  he's  a  fellow  that  Buchanan  appointed."  Lin- 
coln did  not  rebuke  this  interruption,  but  began  to 
write  on  a  little  pad.  When  he  had  finished  he  tore 
off"  the  slip,  and  before  handing  it  to  his  caller  read 
it  aloud:  — 

"Dear  Gov.  Seward:  —  If  there  be  a  consul  at 

St.   Helena  —  'mind   you,'   he   added   to  the   man, 

'I   don't  wholly  give   up   my  contention'  —  I  wish 

you  would  appoint  the  bearer,  particularly  because 

he  comes  from  Thad  Stevens,  who  has  not  troubled 

us  much  of  late.  cc  A    T  „ 

"A.  Lincoln. 

He  had  infinite  patience  with  bores.  A  weather 
prophet  gained  his  attention,  for  Lincoln  was  always 

279 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


credulous  in  such  matters,  and  he  gave  the  man's 
prophecies  a  fair  trial.  Finally,  after  several  dis- 
appointments, he  wrote  to  the  prophet  declining  to 
see  him  again,  because  he  had  predicted  it  would 
not  rain  for  a  month,  and  a  ten-hour  downpour  set 
in  within  two  or  three  days. 

He  did  not  hesitate  to  protect  himself,  when  it 
seemed  to  him  patience  had  ceased  to  be  a  virtue. 
One  insulting  visitor,  an  army  officer,  who  had 
been  cashiered  and  who  was  blind  to  gentler  re- 
proof, overstepped  all  bounds.  Lincoln  seized  him 
by  the  collar  and  marched  him  to  the  door. 

On  the  whole,  he  derived  much  profit  from  his 
practice  of  keeping  open  house.  In  the  first  place, 
he  genuinely  enjoyed  the  occasion.  Human  nature 
delighted  him.  All  who  came  into  his  presence 
felt  that  he  was  interested  in  them,  and  not  hold- 
ing himself  above  them.  The  man  fairly  breathed 
equality. 

His  natural,  unconscious  democracy  was  reflected 
in  a  story  he  told  of  a  dream  he  had.  He  dreamed 
he  was  in  some  great  assembly,  and  the  people  drew 
back  to  let  him  pass,  whereupon  he  heard  some  one 
say,  "He  is  a  common-looking  fellow."  In  his 
dream,  Lincoln  turned  to  the  man  and  said,  "  Friend, 
the  Lord  prefers  common-looking  people;  that  is 
why  He  made  so  many  of  them." 

280 


LIFE   IN   THE  WHITE   HOUSE 

Those  who  approached  him  in  awe  of  his  station 
were  instantly  at  ease  as  they  came  to  him  and  ready 
to  confide  in  him,  as  in  a  friend.  No  honest  man 
was  abashed  in  his  presence  or  humbled  himself 
as  he  greeted  him.  On  his  part,  if  he  could  do 
a  kindness  to  a  simple  person,  with  no  powerful 
influence  behind  him,  he  was  happy. 

He  called  these  receptions  his  "public  opinion 
baths,"  because  he  said  he  came  out  of  them  reno- 
vated and  invigorated  in  his  sense  of  responsibility 
and  duty.  "No  hours  of  my  day,"  he  reasoned, 
"are  better  employed  than  those  which  bring  me 
again  within  the  direct  contact  and  the  atmosphere 
of  the  average  of  our  whole  people."  Officials  are  in 
danger  of  becoming  merely  official,  and  of  forgetting 
that  they  hold  power  only  for  others.  Meeting  the 
people  in  the  free  way  that  he  did,  served,  he  said, 
"to  renew  in  me  a  clearer  and  more  vivid  image 
of  that  great  popular  assemblage  out  of  which  I 
sprang  and  to  which  I  must  return." 

The  first  principle  of  Lincoln's  wonderful  leader- 
ship was  to  keep  always  in  touch  with  the  people. 
Absorbed  in  his  duties,  he  lost  the  habit  of  news- 
paper reading,  and  once  when  urged  to  read  some 
editorial  comments  on  a  subject,  he  replied,  "I  know 
more  about  it  than  any  of  them."  He  went  neither 
to  editors  nor  to    senators  to  learn  public  opinion, 

281 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


and  he  repeatedly  showed  that  his  judgment  of  it 
was  more  correct  than  theirs. 

"I  don't  want  to  know  what  Washington  thinks 
about  it,"  he  said  to  a  man  who  was  telling  him  of 
opinion  in  Congress.  He  preferred  to  deal  directly 
with  the  people.  When  he  had  anything  to  say  to 
them,  he  knew  how  to  say  it  in  a  way  they  would 
surely  understand.  "  Billy,  don't  shoot  too  high," 
he  used  to  caution  Herndon,  his  old  law  partner. 
The  people  knew,  too,  that  when  he  spoke,  it  was 
to  some  purpose  other  than  to  hear  himself  talk. 
"I  am  very  little  inclined  on  any  occasion,"  he  re- 
marked, "to  say  anything  unless  I  hope  to  produce 
some  good  by  it." 

To  a  regiment  which  he  reviewed  he  made  an 
appeal  for  the  Union  that  brought  the  cause  home 
to  every  fireside:  "I  happen  temporarily  to  occupy 
this  big  White  House.  I  am  a  living  witness  that 
any  one  of  your  children  may  look  to  come  here 
as  my  father's  child  has.  It  is  in  order  that  each 
one  of  you  may  have  through  this  free  government 
which  we  have  enjoyed  an  open  field  and  a  fair 
chance  .  .  .  that  the  struggle  should  be  maintained, 
that  we  may  not  lose  our  birthright.  .  .  ." 

When  some  workingmen  from  New  York  called, 
they  saw  in  him  a  fellow-lab orei,  who  personified 
the    opportunity    for    which    the    republic    stands 

282 


LIFE   IN   THE   WHITE   HOUSE 

"The  strongest  bond  of  human  sympathy,"  Lincoln 
told  them,  "outside  of  the  family  relation,  should 
be  one  uniting  all  working  people,  of  all  nations 
and  tongues  and  kindred/'  but  not  to  war  upon 
property.  "Let  not  him,"  he  said,  "who  is  house- 
less pull  down  the  house  of  another,  but  let  him 
labor  diligently  and  build  one  for  himself,  thus  by 
example  assuring  that  his  own  shall  be  safe  from 
violence  when  built." 

In  him  the  multitude  saw  themselves  in  the  White 
House,  for  his  virtues  were  all  simple  ones,  as  likely 
to  be  found  among  common  men  as  in  any  grade 
of  life,  —  truth,  temperance,  courage,  and  wisdom. 
James  Russell  Lowell,  in  the  middle  of  Lincoln's 
term,  drew  from  his  example  the  lesson  that  "  a  pro- 
found common  sense  is  the  best  genius  for  states- 
manship." 

Lincoln  influenced  the  people  far  more  than  they 
influenced  him  in  whatever  intercourse  he  had  with 
them.  He  was  not  in  any  sense  a  "President  with 
his  ear  to  the  ground."  Fe  needed  to  consult 
only  his  own  instincts  in  order  to  know  the  people's, 
for  he  could  feel,  as  Emerson  said,  "the  pulse  of 
twenty  million  throbbing  in  his  heart." 


*3 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

LINCOLN   AND    HIS    CHILDREN 


His  sympathetic  attitude  toward  youth.  —  "Tad"  and  "Willie" 
with  their  pets  and  at  play  in  the  White  House.  —  Their  shouts 
always  welcome  in  the  ears  of  their  care-burdened  father,  and 
their  intrusions  never  resented.  —  Willie's  death,  February  20, 
1862,  and   Lincoln's  grief.  —  "The  hardest  trial  of  my  life." 

—  Little  Tad,  the  President's  only  chum  in  the  dark  days 
of  war  time.  —  Stanton  made  him  a  lieutenant.  —  Lincoln's 
modest    application    to   Grant   in   behalf  of  his   son   Robert. 

—  Tad  and  the  office  seekers.  —  Falling  asleep  nightly  beside 
his  father  at  work. 

Children  liked  Lincoln.  Their  keen  eyes  seemed 
to  penetrate  his  sad  and  rugged  countenance  and 
see  the  good-natured  man  behind  it.  Simple  per- 
sons, young  as  well  as  old,  instinctively  felt  a  kin* 
ship  with  him  and  stood  in  no  awe  of  him.  Babies 
in  their  mothers'  arms  reached  out  trustingly  toward 
him,  and  romping  youngsters  were  not  stilled  in 
his  presence.  He  delighted  in  their  bold  freedom 
and  did  not  care  if  they  were  noisy. 

He  looked  upon  the  hard  privations  of  his  own  boy- 
hood as  an  example  to  be  avoided  and  not  followed. 
For  that  reason,  he  was  not  given  to  preaching 
from  the  familiar  text,  "When  I  was  a  boy  I  had  to 
do  this  and  that." 

284 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CHILDREN 

His  four  children  were  all  boys:  Robert  Todd, 
born  August  I,  1843;  Edward  Baker,  born  March 
10,  1846,  died  in  infancy;  William  Wallace,  born 
December  21,  1850,  died  in  the  White  House,  Feb- 
ruary 20,  1862;  Thomas,  born  April  4,  1853,  died 
in  Chicago,  July  15,  1871. 

But  one  of  the  boys  lived  to  manhood.  The  oldest, 
Robert,  was  a  student  at  Harvard  while  Lincoln  was 
President.  Only  William  and  Thomas,  or  "Willie" 
and  "Tad,"  as  he  called  them,  were  with  their  father 
in  the  White  House. 

The  former  was  ten  and  the  latter  eight  years  old 
when  they  went  to  live  in  the  stately  old  mansion 
of  the  Presidents.  They  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
plain  home  in  a  little  town  out  on  the  prairies  of 
Illinois,  where  they  were  free  to  play  in  the  streets 
and  on  the  "commons"  with  other  boys.  When 
their  father  became  President  of  the  United  States 
and  they  moved  into  the  White  House,  they  refused 
to  change  their  independent  manners  and  habits. 

They  each  had  a  goat,  and  they  hitched  their 
horned  steeds  to  big  chairs  and  drove  them  up  and 
down  the  hall.  They  had  dogs  which  they  harnessed 
and  drove  in  the  winding  paths  of  the  White  House 
grounds.  Two  ponies  in  the  presidential  stable  were 
theirs,  and  mounted  on  them  they  galloped  along 
the  avenues  of  the  capital.     They  gave  shows  in 

285 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


the  attic  of  the  mansion  among  the  historic  rubbish, 
stowed  away  there  by  a  dozen  Presidents  in  the 
past. 

Their  shouts  at  play  were  the  only  notes  of  joy 
that  came  to  the  ears  of  their  care-burdened  father. 
Their  voices,  however  loud,  did  not  annoy  him, 
and  he  never  seemed  to  be  impatient  of  their  in- 
trusions upon  him,  no  matter  how  grave  might  be 
the  business  which  he  had  in  hand.  Often  he  went 
out  into  the  grounds  and  joined  in  their  games, 
regardless  of  his  dignity  and  the  amazement  of  the 
lookers-on.  Sometimes  he  played  ball  with  them 
and  their  playmates,  running  the  bases  with  his  long 
legs  as  if  he  had  no  other  purpose  in  life. 

When  a  cat  belonging  to  one  of  his  sons  had  kittens 
and  a  dog  belonging  to  the  other  had  pups,  both 
events  occurring  on  the  same  day,  he  shared  the 
children's  excitement  and  announced  the  stirring 
news  to  senators  and  generals  as  they  called  on 
matters  of  state. 

His  two  little  boys  were  Lincoln's  closest  com- 
panions after  he  went  to  the  White  House,  and  were 
more  intimate  with  him  than  any  member  of  the 
cabinet.  In  their  first  winter  there  they  both  fell 
sick,  and  at  the  same  time  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  con- 
fined to  her  bed.  It  was  in  a  dark  period,  when 
the  nation  itself  was  believed  to  be  lying  at  death's 

286 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CHILDREN 

door.  The  President  was  overwhelmed  by  his 
anxieties,  private  and  public.  He  sat  up  with  his 
boys  through  the  nights  and  went  about  his  heavy 
official  duties  by  day. 

Willie  died,  and  his  father's  heart  was  torn  with 
grief.     "This   is  the  hardest  trial  of  my  life,"   he 
confessed  to  the  nurse,  and  in  a  spirit  of  rebellion 
this    man,    overweighted   with    cares    and    sorrows 
cried  out:  "Why  is  it  ?     Why  is  it  ?" 

He  strove  like  a  little  child  to  learn  to  say, 
"Thy  will  be  done,"  while  the  lifeless  body  of  his 
loved  boy  lay  in  the  Green  Room,  beneath  his 
office.  For  weeks  the  battle  raged  in  his  breast, 
and  one  day  in  each  of  those  weeks  while  the  struggle 
lasted  he  surrendered  to  his  grief,  dropping  his  work 
and  wrapping  himself  in  gloom.  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
meanwhile,  sought  to  console  herself  by  attempting 
to  communicate  with  the  spirit  of  her  dead  child 
through  a  medium  and  his  table  rappings  and  slate 
writings  in  a  darkened  room. 

A  vision  of  the  youth  came  to  Lincoln  several 
nights  in  his  dreams,  and  gave  him  a  certain  melan- 
choly pleasure.  In  good  time,  however,  the  dark 
passion  which  had  clouded  his  nature  was  entirely 
thrown  off,  and  a  nobler  philosophy  ruled  him. 
Doubtless  the  fortitude  he  gained  in  this  time  of 
suffering  became  a  part  of  that  heroic  faith  in  the 

287 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


man  which  lifted  him  above  the  general  despair 
when  his  country's  fortunes  sank  the  lowest. 

After  Willie's  death,  little  Tad  received  a  double 
share  of  his  father's  affection.  Generally  they  slept 
together,  and  no  time  or  place  was  sacred  from 
the  boy.  He  was  free  to  interrupt  his  father  on  any 
occasion  and  to  crawl  over  him  even  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet.  The  President  liked  to  go  through 
picture  books  with  him,  and  laughed  carelessly 
when  teachers  or  tutors  complained  that  he  did  not 
pay  enough  attention  to  his  school  books. 

The  boy  was  all  the  dearer  to  his  father  because 
of  an  impediment  in  his  speech,  due  to  a  defective 
palate.  This  was  overcome  as  he  grew  older,  but 
when  he  was  a  little  fellow  he  could  hardly  make 
himself  understood  by  strangers. 

Even  Secretary  Stanton,  who  was  so  stern  with 
men,  had  a  weakness  for  Tad.  One  day  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  pretended  to  appoint  him  a  lieuten- 
ant in  the  army.  The  boy  took  the  honor  in  dead 
earnest,  and  soon  contrived  somehow  to  fit  himself 
out  in  a  uniform  appropriate  to  his  rank.  The  little 
lieutenant  was  fond  of  drilling  and  eating  with  the 
President's  guard  of  soldiers. 

Taking  it  into  his  head  to  relieve  them  one  night, 
he  sent  away  the  squad  on  duty  and  proceeded  to 
organize  a  new  guard  from  among  the  laborers  about 

28S 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  H.  Meserve,  Esq.,  New  York  City 

Lincoln  and  Tad 

From  a  photograph  made  in  Washington 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    CHILDREN 

the  White  House.  The  affair  was  excitedly  brought 
to  the  President's  attention,  but  the  Commander- 
in-chief  was  moved  to  laughter  rather  than  censure. 
In  at  least  one  great  review  of  the  army  down  in 
Virginia,  this  youngest  lieutenant,  mounted  on  a 
horse,  rode  behind  his  father  and  the  commanding 
general  as  they  galloped  along  the  line  of  cheering 
troops. 

While  Tad  gained  his  military  rank  without  em- 
ploying his  father's  influence,  his  brother  Robert 
owed  his  commission  in  the  army  to  the  President's 
intercession  with  General  Grant.  The  shyness 
with  which  Lincoln,  who  showered  shoulder  straps 
by  the  thousands,  hinted  for  this  little  favor  from 
his  general  lends  peculiar  interest  to  his  applica- 
tion: "Please  read  and  answer  this  letter  as  though 
I  was  not  President,  but  only  a  friend.  My  son, 
now  in  his  twenty-second  year,  having  graduated 
at  Harvard,  wishes  to  see  something  of  the  war 
before  it  ends.  I  do  not  wish  to  put  him  in  the 
ranks,  nor  yet  to  give  him  a  commission  to  which 
those  who  have  already  served  long  are  better  en- 
titled and  better  qualified  to  hold. 

"Could  he,  without  embarrassment  to  you  or 
detriment  to  the  service,  go  into  your  military 
family  with  some  nominal  rank,  I,  and  not  the 
public,  furnishing  his  necessary  means  ?     If  no,  say 

U  2&Q 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


so  without  the  least  hesitation,  because  I  am  as  anx- 
ious and  as  deeply  interested  that  you  shall  not  be 
encumbered  as  you  can  be  yourself." 

The  President's  letters  and  telegrams  to  his  wife, 
when  she  and  Tad  were  absent  from  Washington, 
were  almost  always  laden  with  some  piece  of  infor- 
mation for  Tad's  special  benefit.  In  one  such  com- 
munication he  noted  that  "Nanny  was  found  resting 
herself  and  chewing  her  little  cud  on  the  middle  of 
Tad's  bed,"  and  again  he  sent  this  message  by 
telegraph,  "Tell  Tad  the  goats  and  father  are  very 
well,  especially  the  goats." 

Perhaps  the  strangest  document  in  all  the  volumes 
of  the  Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  a 
telegram  in  reference  to  Tad :  — 

"Executive  Mansion,  June  9,  1863. 

"Mrs.  Lincoln,  Philadelphia,  Pa.: 

"Think  you  had  better  put  Tad's  pistol  away. 
I  had  an  ugly  dream  about  him. 

"A.  L." 

The  son  had  the  father's  active  sympathies.  He 
used  to  get  up  little  fairs  of  his  own,  at  which  he 
held  sales  for  the  aid  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
soldiers.  Sometimes  he  went  into  the  crowd  of 
office  seekers,  who  were  always  at  the  White  House, 
una  soricited  money  for  the  same  good  end.     He  had 

290 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    CHILDREN 

I  M>— — — —■— — — M  I  II       ——I  — —— m  I       II        — — — — — — — 

a  habit  of  going  among  the  people  in  the  halls  and 
waiting  room  and  learning  their  wants.  Now  and 
then  when  they  touched  his  pity  or  appealed  to  his 
sense  of  justice,  he  promptly  led  them  into  the 
presence  of  the  President. 

In  the  evening,  it  was  Tad's  custom  to  go  tc 
his  father  and  make  a  report  of  all  he  had  seen 
and  done  since  morning.  As  a  rule  he  fell  asleep 
in  the  midst  of  his  prattle,  and  then  Lincoln  turned 
again  to  his  labors,  his  boy  lying  on  the  floor  beside 
his  desk.  When  the  President's  own  long  day  was 
done,  he  took  the  sleeping  child  on  his  shoulder  and 
carried  him  to  bed. 


291 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LINCOLN    AND    HIS    SOLDIERS 


Indifferent  to  the  pomp  and  glory  of  war,  this  commander  of  a 
million  men  in  arms  held  himself  no  more  than  the  equal  of 
the  least  among  them.  —  His  deference  to  the  men  in  the  ranks 
and  their  love  for  Father  Abraham.  —  Visiting  the  sick  and 
wounded.  —  His  interview  with  a  blind  soldier.  —  Heeding  a 
baby's  appeal.  —  His  beautiful  tribute  to  a  bereaved  mother.  — 
Looking  into  the  camp  kettle.  —  His  courage  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy.  —  "There  are  already  too  many  weeping  widows."  —  His 
hatred  of  Fridays.  —  A  friend  of  the  coward.  —  "  Leg  cases."  — 
Pity  for  a  condemned  slave-trader.  —  Lincoln  and  the  sleeping 
sentinel.  —  The  boy  who  paid  the  President's  bill. 

"O,  slow  to  smite  and  swift  to  spare, 
Gentle  and  merciful  and  just ! 
Who,  in  the  fear  of  God,  didst  bear 

The  sword  of  power  —  a  nation's  trust ! " 

—  William  Cullen  Bryant. 

Lincoln's  life  was  filled  with  striking  contrasts. 
For  this  careless  captain  of  a  company  of  unruly 
rustics  in  the  Black  Hawk  War  to  become  the 
Commander-in-chief  of  a  million  soldiers,  a  mightier 
force  of  warriors  than  any  conquering  monarch 
of  modern  times  ever  assembled,  was  perhaps  the 
strangest  fortune  that  befell  him.  In  four  years  he 
called  to  his  command  two  and  a  half  millions  of 
men,  probably  a  greater  number  than  followed  the 

292 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

eagles  of  Napoleon  in  all  his  twenty  years  of  cam- 
paigning from  Areola  to  Waterloo. 

Yet  this  unparalleled  martial  power  never  touched 
the  ambition  of  Lincoln.  He  cared  nothing  for  the 
pomp  of  arms,  the  pride  of  rank,  or  the  glory  of 
war.  This  man  who  could  say  to  ten  hundred 
thousand  armed  troops,  go,  and  they  would  goy 
come,  and  they  would  come,  held  himself  to  be 
no  more  than  the  equal  of  the  least  among  them 
While  he  stood  toward  all  as  a  comrade  rather  than 
a  commander,  they  looked  up  to  him  in  perfect  trust, 
and  delighted  to  hail  him  as  Father  Abraham. 

It  was  enough  for  him  to  touch  his  hat  to  a  general, 
but  he  liked  to  bare  his  head  to  the  boys  in  the  ranks. 
He  himself  created  generals  by  the  hundreds,  but 
in  his  eyes  the  private  soldier  was  the  handiwork  of 
the  Almighty.  The  reported  capture  of  an  officer 
and  twelve  army  mules  in  a  raid  near  Washington 
only  moved  him  to  remark,  "How  unfortunate! 
I  can  fill  that  brigadier's  place  in  five  minutes,  but 
those  mules  cost  us  two  hundred  dollars  apiece." 
He  never  to  the  end  solved  the  mystery  of  the  uni- 
forms, and  could  not  tell  a  general  from  a  colonel 
by  his  epaulettes. 

If  he  passed  the  White  House  guard  twenty  times 
a  day,  he  always  saluted  its  members.  He  knew  by 
name    every    man  in    the   company  which  watched 

293 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


over  him  in  his  rest  at  the  Soldiers'  Home,  and  was 
the  real  friend  of  all,  heartily  enjoying  an  occasional 
cup  of  coffee  at  their  mess  and  the  little  jokes  they 
played  on  one  another.  If  any  were  missing,  he 
noticed  their  absence,  and  if  they  were  sick,  he  never 
forgot  to  ask  about  them. 

The  many  military  hospitals,  crowded  with  human 
suffering,  that  sprang  up  in  Washington,  were  his 
special  care.  He  visited  and  cheered  the  wounded, 
pausing  beside  their  cots  of  pain,  bending  upon  them 
his  pitying  gaze  and  laying  his  great  hand  tenderly 
on  their  fevered  brows.  He  remembered  and 
watched  those  who  were  in  peril  of  death,  and 
eagerly  welcomed  any  signs  of  improvement  in  their 
condition,  while  he  joked  with  those  who  were  well 
enough  to  take  a  joke. 

Once  as  he  drove  up  to  a  hospital,  Lincoln  saw 
one  of  the  inmates  walking  directly  in  front  of  his 
team,  and  he  cried  out  to  the  driver  to  stop.  The 
horses  were  checked  none  too  soon  to  avoid  running 
the  man  down.  Then  Lincoln  saw  that  the  poor 
fellow,  only  a  boy,  had  been  shot  in  both  eyes. 
He  got  out  of  his  carriage  and,  taking  the  blind 
soldier  by  the  hand,  asked  him  in  quavering  tones 
for  his  name,  his  service,  and  his  residence.  "I  am 
Abraham  Lincoln,"  he  himself  said,  as  he  waf 
leaving,  and  the  sightless  face  of  the  youth  was  lit 

294 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

up  with  gratitude  as  he  listened  to  the  President's 
words  of  honest  sympathy. 

The  next  day  the  chief  of  the  hospital  laid  in  the 
boy's  hands  a  commission  as  first  lieutenant  in  the 
army  of  the  United  States,  bearing  the  President's 
signature,  and  with  it  an  order  retiring  him  on  three- 
fourths  pay  for  all  the  years  of  helplessness  that, 
until  then,  had  stretched  before  him  through  a  hope- 
less future. 

The  sympathy  of  most  men  who  get  to  be  presi- 
dents, governors,  or  statesmen  can  be  reached  only 
through  their  heads.  It  becomes  a  thing  of  the 
mind,  filtered  and  cooled  by  an  intellectual  process. 
Lincoln's  sympathies  always  remained  where  nature 
herself  placed  them,  in  the  heart,  and  thence  they 
freely  flowed,  unhindered  by  reflection  and  calcu- 
lation. Kindness  with  him  was  an  impulse  and 
not  a  duty.  His  benevolence  was  far  from  scientific, 
yet  he  was  so  shrewd  a  judge  of  human  nature  that 
he  seldom  was  cheated. 

The  stone  walls  of  the  White  House  no  more 
shut  him  in  from  his  fellows,  from  the  hopes  and 
sorrows,  the  poverty  and  the  pride  of  the  plain 
people,  than  did  the  unhewn  logs  behind  which 
he  shivered  and  hungered  in  his  boyhood  home. 
A  mother's  tears,  a  baby's  cry,  a  father's  plea,  an 
empty  sleeve,  or  a  crutch  never  failed  to  move  him. 

295 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


A  woman  weeping  in  a  hall  of  the  War  De- 
partment with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  disturbed  him, 
and  he  could  not  put  the  affecting  picture  out 
of  his  thoughts.  Learning  that  she  was  crying  be- 
cause she  could  not  be  permitted  under  the  rules 
to  go  to  her  husband  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
and  show  him  their  first  born  which  the  father  never 
had  seen,  he  caused  the  Department  to  summon 
the  soldier  to  Washington  by  telegraph,  and  a  bed 
in  one  of  the  hospitals  to  be  assigned  to  the  mother 
and  child.  This  good  deed  done,  the  great  simple 
man  was  happy  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

A  soldier  who  did  not  appeal  to  him  at  all,  but 
whose  angry  curses  on  the  government  he  chanced 
to  hear  while  walking  along  a  path  in  the  White 
House  grounds,  gained  his  aid.  The  President, 
seating  himself  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  examined  the 
man  as  to  his  grievance,  and  gave  him  an  order 
which  promptly  brought  him  the  pay  he  had  been 
unable  to  draw. 

His  wonderful  patience  was  most  wonderful  in 
his  bearing  toward  all  who  wore  the  blue.  They 
came  to  him  in  perfect  trust,  when  colonels  and 
generals  and  bureau  chiefs  and  the  Secretary  of 
War  were  deaf  to  them.  With  the  great  burden  of 
the  nation  on  his  shoulders,  he  always  stopped  to 
listen  to  their  tales  of  trouble,  although,  as  he  said, 

296 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

he  might  as  well  have  tried  to  bail  out  the  Potomac 
with  a  teaspoon  as  to  go  into  every  detail  of  the 
administration  of  a  vast  army. 

Once  when  disaster  was  on  every  hand,  and  he 
was  overborne  with  care,  he  reproved  a  man,  who 
had  been  refused  by  every  one  else,  for  following 
him  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  his  only  refuge,  and 
$ent  him  away.  Early  the  next  morning,  after  a 
night  of  remorse,  he  went  to  the  man's  hotel,  begged 
his  forgiveness  for  treating  "with  rudeness  one  who 
had  offered  his  life  for  his  country "  and  was  in 
sore  troubb.  Taking  him  in  his  carriage,  the  Presi- 
dent saw  him  through  his  difficulties.  When  he 
told  Secretary  Stanton  what  he  had  done,  the  Sec- 
retary himself  apologized  for  having  rejected  the 
appeal  in  the  first  instance. 

"No,  no,"  said  Lincoln,  "you  did  right  in  ad- 
hering to  your  rules.  If  we  had  such  a  soft-hearted 
old  fool  as  I  am  in  your  place,  there  would  be  no 
rules  that  the  army  or  the  country  could  depend 
on." 

When  he  heard  of  a  poor  widow  in  Massachusetts; 
a  working  woman  who,  it  was  reported,  had  lost 
five  sons  in  battle,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  her  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  letters  of  condolence  that  a 
hand  ever  was  inspired  to  write:  — 

"I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  word 

297 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


of  mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from 
the  grief  of  a  loss  so  overwhelming,  but  I  cannot 
refrain  from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that 
may  be  found  in  the  thanks  of  the  republic  they 
died  to  save. 

"  I  pray  our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the 
anguish  of  your  bereavements  and  leave  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the 
solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so 
costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. " 

Whenever  he  visited  an  army,  he  showed  his 
unfailing  interest  in  the  enlisted  men,  going  among 
them,  and  even  looking  into  their  camp  kettles  to 
see  how  they  were  fed.  "General,"  he  said  to 
Butler,  "  I  should  like  to  ride  along  the  lines  and  see 
the  boys  and  how  they  are  situated."  Accordingly 
he  and  the  General  rode  until  they  were  within 
three  hundred  yards  of  the  enemy's  pickets.  The 
latter  heard  the  Union  troops  cheering  their  Presi- 
dent, and  saw  his  tall  figure  as  he  sat  in  his  saddle. 
Butler  was  uneasy  and  said,  "You  are  in  a  fair 
rifle  shot  of  the  rebels,  and  they  may  open  fire  on 
you."  He  wished  him  to  turn  away.  Lincoln 
laughed  and  replied,  "The  Commander-in-chief 
of  the  army  must  not  show  any  cowardice  in  the 
presence  of  his  soldiers,  whatever  he  may  feel." 
And  he  kept  on   until  he  had  covered  the  entire 

298 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

line  of  intrenchments,  some  six    miles  or  more  in 
length. 

It  was  for  the  men  in  the  trenches  that  he  felt  the 
Union  must  be  saved.  He  was  not  striving  to  per- 
petuate it  for  the  sake  of  the  business  interests  of 
the  country,  for  the  benefit  of  the  prosperous.  He 
believed  the  downfall  of  the  Union,  the  overthrow 
of  a  government  by  the  people,  would  be  a  heavy 
if  not  a  fatal  blow  to  the  multitude  the  world  over, 
to  "the  last  best  hope  of  earth."  Each  man  can 
look  upon  the  universe  only  with  his  own  eyes. 
Lincoln  saw  how  freely  the  democratic  institutions 
of  the  United  States  had  permitted  him  to  rise,  and 
this  was  the  ideal  which  he  cherished  for  the  Union. 

"Gold  is  good  in  its  place,  but  living,  brave,  and 
patriotic  men  are  better  than  gold,"  he  said.  His 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  complained  of  him,  that 
he  never  once  asked  to  see  the  treasury  figures,  to 
see  how  the  money  was  coming  in  and  going  out 
to  carry  on  the  war.  His  Secretary  of  War,  on  the 
other  hand,  continually  complained  of  him  for  inter- 
fering with  that  department,  in  his  effort  to  protect 
private  soldiers.  The  generals  echoed  this  pro- 
test. Indeed,  the  only  criticism  of  Lincoln's 
own  direct  use  of  his  despotic  authority  which 
stands  to-day  is  of  his  lavish  exercise  of  the  par- 
doning power. 

299 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


This  interest  on  his  part  was  no  fickle,  unsteady 
freshet  of  gushing  sentimentality  which  overflowed 
one  day  and  dried  up  the  next,  no  alternating  current 
of  strength  and  weakness.  Mercy  flowed  in  a  con- 
stant stream  from  its  fountain  in  his  great  heart, 
nourishing  the  fragrant  flower  of  charity  under  the 
withering  blasts  of  war. 

The  eye,  in  running  over  the  printed  pages  of 
his  official  correspondence,  is  forever  coming  upon 
traces  of  this  persistent  quality  of  the  man.  "If 
you  have  not  yet  shot  Dennis  McCarthy,  don't." 
"  Has  he  been  a  good  soldier,  except  the  desertion  ? 
About  how  old  is  he  ?"  "I  do  not  like  this  punish- 
ment of  withholding  pay ;  it  falls  so  very  hard  upon 
poor  families. "  These  several  quotations  from  de- 
spatches sent  by  Lincoln  are  a  few  out  of  scores 
of  similar  inquiries  and  instructions  which  may  be 
seen  in  casually  turning  the  leaves  of  his  published 
writings. 

Commanders  in  the  field  implored  him  to  withhold 
his  hand,  and  scolded  him  because  he  would  not 
leave  them  free  to  apply  the  stern  measures  they 
deemed  necessary  to  the  discipline  of  the  military 
machine.  He  never  could  forget,  however,  that 
a  volunteer  army  after  all  is  a  human  machinej 
and  it  was  his  faith  that  love  conquers  more  than 
fear.     Every  soldier  who  carried  a  musket  was  as 

300 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

a  son  of  his.  All  were  his  children,  and  hardly 
more  than  children  were  the  defenders  of  the  Union. 

Of  the  two  and  a  half  million  enlistments,  more 
thtn  two  million  were  of  boys  under  twenty-one; 
more  than  a  million  of  the  soldiers  were  not  even 
eighteen;  eight  hundred  thousand  went  into  the 
army  before  they  were  seventeen,  two  hundred 
thousand  before  they  were  sixteen,  and  one  hundred 
thousand  before  they  were  fifteen  years  old. 

"There  are  already  too  many  weeping  widows,** 
Lincoln  insisted  to  one  of  those  who  protested, 
when  forbidden  to  shoot  twenty-four  deserters  in 
a  row;  "for  God's  sake,  don't  ask  me  to  add  to 
the  number,  for  I  won't  do  it."  "They  are  shoot- 
ing a  boy  to-day,"  he  was  heard  to  say  once.  "I 
hope  I  have  not  done  wrong  to  allow  it."  He  hated 
Fridays.  As  he  turned  to  a  heap  of  sentences  lying 
on  his  table  one  Thursday,  he  said,  "To-morrow  is 
butcher's  day,  and  I  must  go  through  these  papers 
and  see  if  I  can't  find  some  excuse  to  let  these  poor 
fellows  off." 

He  was  honest  about  it.  He  did  not  pretend  to 
apply  any  strict  rules  of  justice.  "I  think  this  boy 
can  do  us  more  good  above  ground  than  under 
ground,"  was  his  reason  in  one  instance.  "The 
case  of  Andrews  is  really  a  very  bad  one,"  was  his 
indorsement  on  a  commutation,   and  he  admitted 

301 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


he  commuted  the  sentence  solely  "because  I  am 
trying  to  evade  the  butchering  business." 

The  coward  found  a  friend  in  this  brave  man. 
Convictions  on  the  black  charge  of  "cowardice  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy"  he  lightly  called  "leg  cases." 
"If,"  he  demanded  of  a  frowning  army  officer, 
"God  Almighty  gives  a  man  a  cowardly  pair  of 
legs,  how  can  he  help  their  running  away  with  him  ?" 
A  pigeon-hole  in  his  desk  was  crowded  with  these 
"leg  cases"  of  men  who  had  run  away,  but  who 
were  suffered  by  Lincoln  to  live  to  fight  another 
day. 

His  hand,  so  ready  to  spare,  paused  above  the  death 
writ  of  a  convicted  slave-trader,  as  he  sadly  remarked, 
"Do  you  know  how  hard  it  is  to  have  a  human  being 
die  when  you  feel  that  a  stroke  of  your  pen  will 
save  him  ?"  Even  this  heinous  offender  was  not 
barred  from  his  large  pity  as  a  brother  man.  He 
delayed  the  execution  from  the  fear  that  in  the 
man's  delusive  hope  of  pardon  he  had  not  prepared 
himself  for  death,  and  he  admonished  him  in  the 
days  of  grace  which  he  gave  him  "to  refer  himself 
to  the  mercy  of  the  common  God  and  Father  of 
all  men." 

To  his  friend,  David  Davis,  the  presiding  judge 
of  the  old  circuit,  whom  he  lifted  to  the  bench  of 
the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  he  once 

->02 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   SOLDIERS 

said  he  did  not  believe  in  killing,  and  that  if  the 
world  had  no  butcher  but  himself,  it  would  go 
bloodless. 

He  was  open  to  appeals  for  clemency  at  any  time 
and  in  any  place.  One  man  went  to  him  late 
at  night,  after  he  had  gone  to  bed,  and  he  sat 
down  in  his  night-clothes  and  wrote  the  order  sus- 
pending the  execution  of  a  nineteen-year-old  boy 
for  sleeping  at  his  post.  The  boy  was  to  be  shot 
the  next  morning,  and  Lincoln  was  so  troubled  by 
the  fear  that  his  telegram  might  go  astray  he  rose 
and  dressed  and  went  to  the  War  Department  in 
order  to  get  into  direct  telegraphic  communication 
with  the  army  in  the  field.  Once  when  he  was 
disturbed  by  a  like  fear  he  was  not  content  until 
he  had  repeated  his  order  by  telegraph  to  four 
persons. 

A  condemned  man  did  not  need  any  powerful 
influence  in  his  behalf.  "If  he  has  no  friend,  I'll 
be  his  friend,"  Lincoln  said  as  he  stopped  the 
shooting  of  a  soldier. 

To  a  woman  who  pleaded  for  her  brother's  life, 
Lincoln  said,  "My  poor  girl,  you  have  come  here 
with  no  governor,  or  senator,  or  member  of  Con- 
gress to  speak  in  your  cause;  you  seem  honest  and 
truthful,  and  you  don't  wear  hoops,  and  I'll  be 
whipped    if    I    don't    pardon    him."     "God    bles« 

303 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


President  Lincoln  "  was  the  written  inscription  under 
a  photograph  of  Lincoln  which  was  found  in  the 
pocket  of  a  dead  soldier  after  the  battle  of  Freder- 
icksburg. By  the  President's  mercy  he  had  been 
spared  a  dishonorable  death  to  die  on  the  field  of 
honor. 

The  oft-told  story  of  Lincoln  and  the  sleeping 
sentinel  has  the  power  to  move  the  heart  far  more 
than  any  feat  of  arms  in  the  Civil  War.  The  senti- 
nel was  a  young  soldier  from  Vermont,  who  was  con- 
demned to  die  in  a  camp  near  Washington  because 
he  had  fallen  asleep  while  on  guard  duty.  The 
offence  was  particularly  serious  at  the  time,  because 
the  safety  of  the  capital  depended  on  the  watch- 
fulness of  the  sentries.  The  officials  determined  to 
make  an  example  of  the  Green  Mountain  youth. 
Every  effort  to  save  him  had  failed  when  the 
captain  and  the  members  of  his  company,  all  neigh- 
bors of  the  doomed  offender,  went  to  the  White 
House  and  saw  Lincoln. 

A  few  hours  afterward  the  boy  was  astonished 
to  receive  a  visit  from  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  who  asked  him  about  his  parents,  their  farm, 
his  work,  and  his  life  generally.  He  told  the  Presi- 
dent the  simple  story  of  his  old  home  among  the  hills, 
and  took  from  his  pocket  a  picture  of  his  mother. 
Lincoln  told  him  he  was  too  good  a  boy  to  be  shot 

3°4 


LINCOLN  AND  HIS   SOLDIERS 

for  merely  falling  asleep  once.  He  himself  had  been 
brought  up  on  a  farm  and  knew  how  hard  it  must 
be  for  a  country  boy  to  keep  awake  nights  when 
inew  to  army  habits  and  duties.  He  promised  to  free 
him,  but  he  would  have  to  present  a  heavy  bill  for 
his  services. 

The  soldier's  happy  face  reflected  a  grateful  heart. 
He  was  sure  his  father  would  raise  what  money  he 
could  by  mortgaging  the  farm  and  pay  the  charge. 
Lincoln  said  that  would  not  be  enough;  the  boy  alone 
could  pay  the  bill  and  only  by  proving  himself  to 
be  as  brave  and  faithful  as  any  soldier  of  the  Union. 
His  hand  rested  on  the  head  and  his  kindly  eyes 
looked  full  into  the  honest  face  of  the  boy,  who 
pledged  his  life  that  he  would  not  disappoint  his 
benefactor. 

The  President's  bill  was  presented  not  long 
afterward.  It  was  in  the  Peninsular  Campaign  and 
in  the  boy's  first  battle.  In  a  desperate  charge  across 
a  river  and  upon  some  blazing  rifle  pits  he  was  among 
the  first  to  face  and  among  the  last  to  turn  his  back 
on  the  enemy.  When  retreat  was  sounded,  he  swam 
in  safety  to  the  friendly  bank  of  the  stream. 

But  he  felt  he  had  not  yet  paid  the  President's 

bill.     He  plunged  into  the  water  again  and  again, 

and  swam  to  and  fro  under  the  shot  of  the  foe  in 

the  work  of  rescuing  wounded  comrades,  until  he 

x  305 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


had  brought  back  the  last  of  them,  but  with  a  bullet 
in  his  own  loyal  breast.  Then  he  was  ready  to  close 
his  account  with  earth.  He  had  paid  the  President's 
bill  in  full,  and  with  his  dying  breath  he  blessed  the 
mercy  of  Lincoln  for  trusting  him  and  permitting 
him  to  give  his  life  for  the  Union. 


306 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

LINCOLN   THE    EMANCIPATOR 


His  life-long  hatred  of  slavery.  —  Why  he  was  not  an  Abolitionist. 

—  His  courage  and  wisdom  in  resisting  rash  counsels.  —  Could 
not  free  the  slaves  as  President,  but  only  as  Commander-in- 
chief  and  as  a  military,  not  as  a  moral  measure.  —  General 
Butler's  declaration  that  slaves  were  contraband  of  war,  May, 
1861.  —  Lincoln's  effort  to  promote  gradual,  compensated 
emancipation  in  the  border  states.  —  The  slaves  in  the  District 
of  Columbia  emancipated  by  Congress,  April  16,  1862.  — 
Lincoln  first  announced  to  his  cabinet,  July  22,  1862,  his 
purpose  to  proclaim  emancipation  in  warring  states.  —  Writing 
the  Proclamation  in  secret.  —  His  vow  to  God.  —  A  strange 
scene  in  the  cabinet  room,  Lincoln  first  reading  from  Artemus 
Ward,  and  then  reading  his  Proclamation,  September  22,  1862. 

—  Emancipation  of  more  than  three  million  slaves  proclaimed, 
January  1,  1863. — The  Confederacy  staggered.  —  One  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  black  troops  for  the  Union  in  1864.  — 
The  South  driven  to  arming  the  negroes.  —  Lincoln's  ideals 
for  the  freedmen.  —  His  dread  of  a  race  problem.  —  The 
thirteenth  amendment  adopted  by  Congress,  February  I,  1865, 
and  ratified  by  the  states,  December  18,  1865. 

Lincoln  always  hated  slavery.  Yet  he  never 
was  an  Abolitionist,  for  the  Abolitionists  who 
were  ridiculed  as  long-haired  men  and  short-haired 
women,  or  cranks,  hated  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union  as  well  as  slavery.  Because  the  Constitution 
recognized  the  existence  of  slavery  and  protected  it 
within  the  states  where  it  existed,  they  denounced 

P7 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


it  as  a  league  with  death  and  a  covenant  with  hell. 
Despairing  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  within  the 
Union,  they  loudly  advocated  disunion  and  the  separa- 
tion of  the  North  from  the  South. 

Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  felt  a  deep  passion 
for  the  Union,  and  it  was  his  faith  that  the  principles 
of  liberty  and  equality,  on  which  it  was  founded, 
would  surely  lead  in  the  end  to  the  gradual  eman 
cipation  of  the  slaves.  He  believed  the  nation 
would  not  permanently  remain  half  free  and  half 
slave;  that  it  would  become  either  one  thing  or  the 
other,  and  that  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  and  the  democratic  institu- 
tions of  the  republic,  freedom  would  triumph. 

The  Abolitionists  did  not  support  him  when  he 
was  a  candidate  for  President,  and  after  he  became 
President  their  eloquent  orator,  Wendell  Phillips, 
described  him  as  "the  slave  hound  of  Illinois. " 
Lincoln  was  still  for  the  Union  above  all  else,  for 
he  felt  if  that  were  lost,  the  surest  guarantee  of 
freedom  for  white  men  as  well  as  black  would  be 
lost. 

If  he  had  permitted  the  Civil  War  to  become 
at  once  a  fight  against  slavery  rather  than  a  fight 
for  the  life  of  the  Union,  he  would  have  driven 
from  his  side  the  slave  states  on  the  border  and  a 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  free  states  of  the  North 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

as  well.  Moreover,  he  believed  that  he  had  no 
right  under  his  oath  of  office  to  destroy  slavery 
except  to  save  the  Union. 

A  President  in  time  of  peace  could  not  free  the 
slaves  any  more  than  he  could  enter  a  man's  house 
and  take  away  something  that  lawfully  belonged  to 
him.  Not  as  President,  but  only  as  Commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  engaged  in  open  war,  could 
Lincoln  emancipate  the  negroes,  just  as  he  could 
kill,  burn,  or  confiscate  whenever  and  wherever  he 
thought  he  could  thereby  hurt  the  enemy  and  help 
the  Union. 

In  resisting  the  rash  counsels  of  the  radicals,  Lin- 
coln showed  a  courage  equal  to  his  wisdom.  He 
must  seem  to  ignore  the  moral  sentiment  of  the 
civilized  world  which  was  outraged  by  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  in  a  free  country,  and  appear  in- 
different to  a  cause  which  he  had  espoused  in  his 
youth. 

He  could  not  fail  to  see,  however,  that  freedom 
was  on  the  way.  No  man  could  stop  it,  and  it  needed 
no  encouragement.  The  South  had  made  war  in 
order  to  perpetuate  slavery.  As  surely  as  the  South 
lost,  slavery  would  be  lost. 

From  the  outset  the  army  commanders  were 
confronted  with  the  question  of  what  to  do  with  the 
negroes  who  came  within   the  Union    lines.     Some 

3°9 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


generals  restored  the  slaves  to  their  owners,  while 
others  went  so  far  as  to  issue  emancipation  proc- 
lamations on  their  own  responsibility. 

Both  methods  brought  embarrassment  to  Lincoln. 
To  return  the  runaways  to  slavery  aroused  in- 
dignation in  the  North  and  even  in  Europe,  while 
to  proclaim  them  free,  alarmed  the  border  states  and 
the  conservatives  of  the  North.  General  Benjamin 
F.  Butler  found  the  happiest  solution  of  all.  He 
declared  the  negroes  who  came  under  his  military 
jurisdiction  "contraband  of  war,"  and  held  them 
just  as  any  contraband  article  is  held  or  treated  in 
time  of  war. 

That  fortunate  phrase  surmounted  many  diffi- 
culties, and  "contrabands,"  as  the  fugitives  came 
to  be  known  in  the  speech  of  the  day,  flocked  to 
the  standard  of  freedom  in  increasing  numbers. 
They  dug  trenches,  threw  up  earthworks,  and  did 
all  manner  of  labor  for  the  Union  armies.  They 
were  not  free,  however,  in  the  cold  eye  of  the  law. 

As  events  continued  to  hasten  the  institution  of 
bondage  to  its  downfall,  Lincoln  did  his  utmost  to 
prepare  the  Union  slaveholders  and  their  sympa- 
thizers for  the  inevitable  end.  He  strove  to  put 
in  operation  a  plan  for  paying  the  owners  of  slaves 
in  the  border  states,  and  to  gain  their  consent  to 
a  slow  process  of  compensated  emancipation.     He 

310 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

pleaded  earnestly  with  the  representatives  of  those 
states  in  Congress,  and  he  addressed  the  people 
themselves.  "You  cannot,  if  you  would,  be  blind 
to  the  signs  of  the  times,,,  he  warned  them  in  a 
proclamation  in  the  spring  of  1862. 

Their  prejudices  against  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
however,  clouded  their  vision,  and  his  warning  was 
unheeded.  Congress,  having  power  over  the  matter 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  passed  a  law  for  the 
compensated  emancipation  of  the  three  thousand 
slaves  at  the  capital,  an  act  which  Lincoln  himself 
had  proposed  when  he  was  a  member  of  the  House 
a  dozen  years  before. 

A  year  of  disaster  to  the  national  cause  sealed 
the  fate  of  slavery.  The  negro  must  be  freed  and 
called  to  the  aid  of  the  Union.  Lincoln  reasoned, 
"Often  a  limb  must  be  amputated  to  save  a  life; 
but  a  life  is  never  wisely  given  to  save  a  limb.,,  He 
must  amputate  slavery  from  the  body  of  our  in- 
stitutions in  order  to  save  the  government  itself 
from  wreck.  He  would  not  emancipate  the  negroes 
because  he  personally  wished  to  see  all  men  free. 
To  do  that  would  be  a  violation  of  his  oath.  He 
would  free  them  solely  because  he  believed  as  Com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  that  their  services 
had  become  a  military  necessity. 

As  in  every  important  transaction  in  his  life,  he 

3" 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


kept  his  own  counsel  while  waiting  and  watching 
for  the  time  to  act.  He  listened  to  those  who  ad- 
dressed him  on  the  subject  and  discussed  it  with 
them;  but  he  told  no  one  of  his  purpose.  In  mid- 
summer of  1862  he  first  informed  his  cabinet 
of  his  intention,  but  he  was  urged  to  wait.  Mc- 
Clellan's  army  was  at  that  time  retreating  down 
the  peninsula  from  Richmond,  and  it  was  argued 
that  if  the  step  were  taken  then,  the  world  would 
look  upon  it  as  an  act  of  desperation.  While  he 
waited,  Lincoln  wrote  the  Proclamation  in  secret. 

A  month  after  the  President  had  confided  his 
purpose  to  the  cabinet,  Horace  Greeley  spread  on 
the  page  of  the  New  York  Tribune  a  stirring  appeal 
for  immediate  emancipation.  Lincoln  answered 
the  editor  without  disclosing  the  resolution  which 
he  had  already  taken.  He  still  insisted  on  keeping 
before  the  people  the  one  issue  of  saving  the  Union. 

"  My  paramount  object,"  Lincoln  wrote  to  Greeley, 
"is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to  save  or 
destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without 
freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it  —  and  if  I  could 
save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,.  I  would  do  it — and 
if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others 
alone,  I  would  also  do  that.  What  I  do  about 
slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  because  I  believe 
it  helps  to  save  the  Union;  and  what  I  forbear,  I 

312 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

— — — — — — — m^— — — ■  — —  e 

forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to 
save  the  Union. " 

Several  weeks  later,  a  delegation  of  clergymen 
from  Chicago  came  to  press  him  to  free  all  the  slaves 
at  once,  and  they  said  they  had  come  in  obedience 
to  a  Divine  command.  Lincoln  answered  that  it 
seemed  as  if  God  would  be  more  likely  to  reveal  His 
will  on  this  subject  to  him  than  to  others,  and  he 
assured  his  callers,  if  he  could  learn  what  God 
wished  him  to  do,  he  would  do  it.  Even  then 
the  written  Proclamation  lay  in  his  desk,  still  con- 
cealed from  every  eye  save  his  own. 

A  few  days  more  and  the  battle  of  Antietam 
brought  victory  to  the  Union  arms.  Five  days 
after  that  event  there  was  a  meeting  of  the  cabinet. 
When  all  the  members  were  in  their  seats,  Lincoln 
told  them  Artemus  Ward,  the  humorist,  had  sent 
him  his  latest  book,  and  he  would  like  to  read  a 
funny  chapter  from  it.  "High-handed  Outrage  at 
Utica,?  was  the  title  of  this  chapter.  One  of  the 
secretaries  said  he  seemed  to  enjoy  the  reading  of 
it  very  much,  and  that  all  the  members  smiled, 
"except  Stanton." 

When  the  President  had  finished  it,  and  finished 
his  laugh  over  it,  his  face  and  his  tone  underwent 
an  instant  change.  "Gentlemen,"  he  said  gravely, 
"when  the  rebel  army  was  at  Frederick,  I  determined 

313 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


as  soon  as  it  should  be  driven  out  of  Maryland  to 
issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  such  as  I 
thought  most  likely  to  be  useful.  I  said  nothing 
to  any  one,  but  I  made  the  promise  to  myself — and 
to  my  Maker.  The  rebel  army  is  now  driven  out 
and  I  am  going  to  fulfil  that  promise.  I  have  got 
you  together  to  hear  what  I  have  written  down. 
I  do  not  wish  your  advice  about  the  main  matter, 
for  that  I  have  determined  for  myself.  This  I  say 
without  intending  anything  but  respect  for  any 
one  of  you." 

He  confessed  it  might  seem  strange  that  he  should 
have  submitted  the  matter  to  the  judgment  of  God, 
but  the  way  was  not  clear  to  his  own  mind.  Now 
that  God  had  decided  in  favor  of  the  slaves,  he  was 
satisfied  the  Proclamation  was  right.  He  asked 
the  members,  therefore,  merely  to  consider  the 
language  of  the  document  and  not  its  purpose,  for 
that  had  been  fully  and  finally  decided. 

He  acknowledged  that  others  in  his  place  might 
do  better  than  he  could  do.  If  he  believed  any 
one  else  more  fully  possessed  the  public  confidence 
and  there  were  a  constitutional  way  in  which  that 
person  could  be  placed  in  the  presidential  chair, 
he  would  gladly  yield  it  to  him.  "I  am  here," 
he  added;  "I  must  do  the  best  I  can  and  bear  the 
responsibility." 

3i4 


LINCOLN  THE   EMANCIPATOR 

If  a  scene  like  unto  this  ever  was  enacted  in  the 
cabinet  room  of  the  White  House,  before  or  since, 
it  is  not  recorded  in  history.  Opening  with  laughter 
over  a  roaring  farce  from  the  pen  of  Artemus  Ward, 
shifting  in  a  twinkling  to  the  freeing  of  a  race  from 
bondage,  and  concluding  by  a  simple,  humble  con- 
fession of  a  childlike  reliance  on  prayer,  it  affords 
in  its  contrasts  a  portrait  of  Lincoln  as  true  as  it  is 
extraordinary. 

The  Proclamation  thus  brought  forth  did  not 
go  into  effect  until  the  first  of  January  following, 
and  it  promised  freedom  only  to  those  negroes  held 
to  slavery  in  the  states  which  at  that  date  should  still 
be  at  war  with  the  Union.  In  other  words,  it  gave 
the  slaveholders  one  hundred  days'  grace,  in  which 
period,  by  bringing  their  states  back  into  the  Union, 
they  could  avert  the  emancipation  of  their  slaves. 

The  New  Year  came  and  with  it  the  usual  recep- 
tion by  the  President  to  the  ministers  from  foreign 
nations,  the  justices  of  the  courts,  the  members  of 
the  Senate  and  House,  the  officers  of  the  army  and 
navy,  the  chiefs  of  bureaus,  and  the  public.  This 
hard  task  finished,  Lincoln  seated  himself  to  sign 
the  final  Emancipation  Proclamation,  declaring  the 
slaves  in  the  Confederate  States  thenceforward  and 
forever  free. 

As  he  took  up  his  pen,  his  hand  was  stiff  from  the 

3i5 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


long  ordeal  of  hand-shaking.  He  said  he  feared 
it  would  tremble  so  badly  that  posterity  would 
look  at  his  signature  and  say,  "He  hesitated." 
Yet,  he  declared,  his  whole  soul  was  in  it,  and 
he  remarked  that  if  his  name  got  into  history  at 
all,  it  would  be  for  the  act  which  he  was  about  to 
complete.  After  resting  his  arm,  he  wrote  his  name 
at  the  bottom  of  the  Proclamation  with  much  care. 
Then  examining  his  penmanship,  he  said  with  a 
smile,  "That  will  do." 

The  pen  was  given  to  a  Massachusetts  man,  its 
handle  gnawed  by  Lincoln's  teeth,  for  it  was  his 
habit  to  hold  his  pen  in  his  mouth  while  forming 
and  rounding  sentences  in  his  mind  before  beginning 
them  on  paper.  The  Proclamation  and  his  signa- 
ture he  intended  to  preserve  for  himself  and  his 
heirs.  When,  however,  he  was  asked  to  give  it  to  a 
great  fair  in  Chicago  and  let  it  be  sold  for  the  benefit 
of  sick  and  wounded  soldiers,  he  unselfishly  parted 
with  it.  A  generous  sum  of  money,  three  thousand 
dollars,  was  realized  by  its  sale  at  auction,  but  the 
document  itself  was  destroyed  in  the  conflagration 
which  burned  the  larger  part  of  Chicago  eight  years 
later. 

By  the  Proclamation  more  than  three  million  of 
the  four  million  slaves  in  the  South  were  declared 
free.     All  those  in  the  loyal  border  states,  in  Ten* 

316 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

nessee,  and  in  the  part  of  Louisiana  held  by  the 
Union  forces  were  excluded  from  its  provisions, 
because,  acting  as  Commander-in-chief  of  the  army, 
the  President  could  not  interfere  with  slavery  out- 
side the  enemy's  country. 

Lincoln's  first  purpose  was  to  spread  demoraliza- 
tion among  the  slaves  of  the  Confederates,  tempting 
the  laborers  who  were  tilling  the  fields  and  raising 
the  crops  which  supported  the  Confederate  army, 
and  who  besides  were  doing  much  of  the  heavy  work 
in  the  construction  of  fortifications,  to  cease  their 
labors  and  seek  freedom  within  the  Union  lines. 
Wherever  the  Stars  and  Stripes  appeared  in  the  states 
of  the  Confederacy,  slavery  instantly  perished. 
Everywhere  the  blacks  hailed  the  advance  of  "Lin- 
kum's  soldiers"  as  their  deliverance  from  bondage. 

The  next  step  after  the  issuance  of  the  proclamation 
was  to  enroll  negro  troops  and  send  them  forth  in 
the  army  of  liberation.  In  the  last  critical  period  of 
the  war,  when  the  draft  was  necessary  in  the  North 
and  extravagant  bounties  had  to  be  paid  to  white 
volunteers,  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand black  men  under  arms,  battling  for  the  Union. 

Lincoln  said  of  this  new  force,  which  the  policy 
of  emancipation  had  brought  to  the  support  of  the 
government,  "  Keep  it,  and  you  can  save  the  Union. 
Throw  it  away,  and  the  Union  goes  with  it."     He 

3*7 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


was  thoroughly  convinced  that  only  by  calling  in  the 
help  of  the  negroes  could  the  life  of  the  nation  be 
preserved. 

The  Confederacy  reeled  from  the  blow,  when  its 
full  effect  was  felt,  and  the  leaders  of  the  South  were 
enraged.  Jefferson  Davis  denounced  the  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  as  the  "most  execrable  measure 
recorded  in  the  history  of  guilty  man,"  and  the  Con- 
federate Congress  enacted  that  any  white  officer  cap- 
tured while  commanding  negro  troops  might  be  put 
to  death.  Some  of  the  generals  of  the  South  an- 
nounced they  would  treat  captured  negro  soldiers  as 
they  treated  any  other  form  of  captured  property. 
In  a  few  instances  black  captives  were  massacred 
and  an  angry  cry  for  retaliation  arose  in  the  North. 
Lincoln,  however,  said  he  could  not  bear  the  thought 
of  killing  southern  prisoners  of  war  for  what  other 
Southerners  had  done.  He  would  not  order  the 
innocent  shot  as  a  punishment  for  the  guilty. 

The  time  came  when  the  South  itself,  in  its  ex- 
tremity, turned  to  the  despised  race.  In  November, 
1864,  President  Davis  sent  a  message  to  his  Congress, 
saying  that  rather  than  accept  defeat  the  Confeder 
ates  would  employ  negro  soldiers  and  reward  them 
with  freedom.  General  Lee  and  General  Johnston 
both  urged  the  adoption  of  such  a  plan,  and  finally, 
en  the  eve  of  the  fall  of  Richmond,  provision  wa» 

318 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

made,  by  act  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  for  the 
enrolment  of  black  troops  under  the  Stars  and  Bars 
of  a  republic  which  had  placed  the  slavery  of  the 
African  race  in  its  very  corner-stone.  Thus  was  Lin- 
coln's Emancipation  Proclamation  doubly  justified 
as  a  military  measure. 

Morally,  Lincoln  wjuld  have  preferred  to  see  the 
negroes  freed,  not  at  one  stroke,  but  gradually. 
This  was  the  ideal  he  expressed  time  and  again, 
for  he  was  always  a  very  practical  man.  He  dreaded 
sudden  revolutions  and  their  equally  violent  reac- 
tions. He  feared  the  racial  strife  and  the  social 
problem  which  would  follow  any  kind  of  emancipa- 
tion, and  he  even  favored  the  experiment  of  sending 
the  freedmen  out  of  the  South  and  colonizing  them 
in  Central  America,  or  elsewhere.  When  he  saw 
that  this  would  not  be  done,  he  turned  to  the  educa- 
tion of  the  liberated  blacks  as  the  best  hope  of  fitting 
them  to  hold  their  own  in  a  land  where  they  had  so 
long  been  in  slavery. 

He  favored  no  sweeping  and  radical  plans.  His 
purpose  was  to  seek  some  slow  but  wise  process, 
whereby  "the  two  races  could  gradually  live  them- 
selves out  of  their  old  relation  to  each  other,  and  both 
come  out  better  prepared  for  the  new."  Universal 
negro  suffrage  did  not  strongly  appeal  to  him.  He 
preferred  that  the  ballot  should  be  placed  only  in  the 

3*9 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


hands  of  the  colored  men  who  had  fought  for  the 
Union,  and  the  "very  intelligent."  Black  voters  of 
those  classes,  he  thought,  would  "probably  help  in 
some  trying  time  to  come,  to  keep  the  jewel  of  liberty 
in  the  family  of  freedom. " 

He  continued  to  beg  the  people  of  the  border 
states  to  complete  the  work  o/  freeing  the  slaves  by 
compensated  emancipation.  Millions  of  dollars  were 
offered  them  in  payment  for  their  negroes,  but  the 
owners  would  not  accept.  The  only  course  re- 
maining was  the  adoption  of  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  forbidding  slavery  everywhere  within  the 
United  States. 

After  all  the  evil  which  the  institution  had  wrought, 
it  must  be  destroyed,  root  and  branch,  before  the 
restoration  of  the  Union.  It  would  be  a  criminal 
folly  to  permit  a  vestige  of  it  to  linger  and  disturb  the 
new  Union.  Lincoln  therefore  strove  earnestly  in  the 
closing  months  of  the  war  for  the  passage  of  the  thir- 
teenth amendment,  which  he  looked  upon  as  the 
completion  of  his  labors  for  freedom. 

In  the  evening  following  his  second  inauguration 
he  held  a  reception.  Frederick  Douglass,  who  was 
born  a  slave,  presented  himself  to  be  received  by  the 
President.  No  negro  ever  before  had  been  seen  on  a 
social  occasion  at  the  White  House,  and  the  police 
Started  at  once  to  put  Douglass  out.     A  protest  being 

320 


LINCOLN   THE   EMANCIPATOR 

raised  by  some  onlooker,  however,  he  was  permitted 
to  take  his  place  in  the  line  of  guests,  where  in  due 
time  he  was  cordially  greeted  by  the  President.  For 
Lincoln,  although  he  knew  the  prejudices  of  others, 
had  a  respect  for  the  feelings  as  well  as  for  the  rights 
of  the  members  of  this  enslaved  race. 

"Mr.  Lincoln,"  said  Douglass,  "is  the  only  white 
man  with  whom  I  have  ever  talked,  or  in  whose  pres- 
ence I  have  ever  been,  who  did  not  consciously  or 
unconsciously  betray  to  me  that  he  recognized  my 
color."  He  invited  Douglass  to  tea  in  his  cottage  at 
the  Soldiers'  Home,  and  many  negroes  attended  the 
President's  New  Year's  reception  in  the  closing 
days  of  the  war,  laughing  and  crying  with  joy  as 
they  stood  in  their  new  manhood  before  their  eman- 
cipator. 


321 


CHAPTER   XXX 

LINCOLN   AND    HIS    CABINET 


A  group  of  naturally  discordant  advisers  moulded  and  harmonized 
by  Lincoln's  unsuspected  mastery  of  men.  —  Seward  or  Chase 
expected  to  be  the  real  power  behind  the  chair  of  the  unknown 
and  untried  President.  —  Seward's  amazing  proposal  to 
Lincoln,  April  I,  1861,  and  the  kindly  firmness  with  which 
the  latter  rejected  it.  —  Chase's  pathetic  failure  to  understand 
his  chief.  —  Attempt  of  the  Senate  to  reconstruct  the  cabinet, 
December  19,  1862,  and  Lincoln's  successful  method  of  meet- 
ing the  crisis.  —  Lincoln  and  Stanton  a  strangely  matched  team. 
—  "I  have  very  little  influence  with  this  administration."  — 
How  Lincoln  slowly  and  gently  gained  the  lead  over  all.  — 
Chase's  resignation,  June  28,  1864,  and  Lincoln's  generous 
appointment  of  him  to  the  Chief-justiceship,  December  6, 
1864.  —  Estimates  of  Lincoln's  leadership  by  Seward  and 
Stanton. 

Lincoln  hated  to  dictate.  He  shrank  from  assum- 
ing to  control  the  members  of  his  cabinet  until 
forced  by  circumstances  to  take  upon  himself  the 
responsibility.  His  natural  preference  was  to  work 
with,  rather  than  to  lead  men.  He  could  not  bear 
to  humble  any  fellow-being,  however  low  his  rank. 
He  found,  however,  as  emergencies  arose,  that  some 
one  must  rule,  and  that  as  President  he  alone  was 
responsible  to  the  people.  His  courage  never  per- 
mitted him  to  shirk  a  duty,  and  thus  little  by  little 

3^ 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    CABINET 

his  power  was  modestly  put  forth  until  his  quiet 
mastery  was  complete. 

When  the  members  of  Lincoln's  cabinet  first  met, 
probably  no  one  among  them  suspected  that  their 
counsels  would  be  ruled  by  the  man  who  sat  at  the 
head  of  the  table.  None  of  them  knew  him,  and 
most  of  them  felt  they  were  the  superiors  of  the  un- 
tried and  untrained  President.  They  had  all  been 
chosen  by  him  for  political  and  party  reasons.  Four 
had  been  his  competitors  for  the  nomination  at  Chi- 
cago.    He  had  not  one  personal  friend  in  the  group. 

The  construction  of  such  a  cabinet  was  a  daring 
venture.  There  was  no  binding  tie  between  the 
secretaries.  Rivals  or  strangers  to  Lincoln,  they 
were  not  united  in  loyalty  to  him.  Drawn  from  hos- 
tile factions,  there  was  no  harmony  of  purpose  among 
them.  Only  a  President  with  the  power  to  mould 
and  master  men  could  hold  together  a  group  of 
advisers  naturally  so  discordant. 

Few,  if  any,  imagined  that  Lincoln  would  dominate 
them.  For  twenty  years  there  had  been  a  succession 
of  weak  Presidents,  reigning  but  not  ruling.  The 
Chief  Executive  had  come  to  be  no  more  than  the 
figurehead  of  a  strong  faction.  Lincoln's  administra- 
tion, therefore,  was  expected  to  be  his  only  in  name. 

Two  men  in  the  cabinet,  Seward  and  Chase,  repre- 
senting opposing  forces  in  the  new  Republican  party, 

323 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


aspired  to  be  the  real  power  behind  the  President's 
chair.  Their  struggle  for  control  began  before  Lin- 
coln reached  Washington,  and  grew  more  intense  as 
time  went  on.  Seward,  an  old  and  adroit  New  York 
politician,  had  been  the  original  choice  of  a  large 
majority  of  Republicans  for  President,  and  he 
looked  upon  Lincoln  as  a  mere  accident  of  politics. 
Moreover,  as  Secretary  of  State,  he  held  the  ranking 
place  in  the  cabinet. 

Under  these  circumstances  he  assumed  at  once  to 
be  the  directing  genius  of  the  administration.  He 
was  a  man  of  free  and  easy  manners,  and  had  been 
long  in  Washington.  Lincoln  liked  him,  and  relied 
for  a  while  upon  his  larger  experience  with  public  men 
and  public  affairs. 

In  this  period,  Seward  amused  himself  by  play- 
ing the  part  of  a  prime  minister.  He  undertook 
not  only  to  conduct  the  State  Department,  but 
to  deal  with  the  seceded  states  of  the  South,  and 
to  give  orders  to  the  army  and  navy.  By  his 
advice  there  were  no  stated  cabinet  meetings  for 
several  weeks,  because  he  preferred  to  be  the  sole 
adviser  of  the  President,  and  he  took  it  upon  himself 
to  call  the  few  meetings  which  were  held  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  administration. 

Intoxicated  by  power,  he  lost  his  head.  He  de- 
termined   to    have    his    supreme    position    formally 

324 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CABINET 

recognized  and  established.  It  was  then  that  he 
made  in  writing  his  wild  proposal  to  the  President, 
that  the  United  States  should  bring  on  a  war  with 
some  foreign  nation  in  order  to  awaken  the  patriot- 
ism of  the  South,  and  that  the  President  should  let 
him  conduct  the  government. 

;  Lincoln  ignored  this  mortal  insult  as  if  it  had  come 
from  a  child,  and  put  aside  the  folly  of  it  all  with  the 
patience  and  firmness  of  a  large  nature  —  a  display 
of  strength  which  instantly  and  forever  conquered  his 
ambitious  Secretary. 

When  Seward  had  finished  reading  the  brief  and 
kindly  reply,  he  was  entirely  changed.  Ever  after 
he  was  content  simply  to  serve.  Straightway  taking 
his  place  in  his  own  department,  he  kept  it  to  the  end, 
an  able  and  loyal  lieutenant  of  his  chief,  whose  path 
he  never  crossed  again.  He  was  the  first  to  challenge 
the  new  President  and  the  first  to  accept  his  leader- 
ship. 

No  hint  of  the  encounter  escaped  the  lips  of  either 
Lincoln  had  maintained  his  own  dignity,  without 
humiliating  Seward.  The  good  understanding  be- 
tween them  in  their  official  relations  ripened  into  a 
hearty  personal  friendship,  which  nothing  ever  dis- 
turbed. 

Chase,  the  other  ambitious  member  of  the  cabinet, 
built  for  himself  the  enduring  fame  of  a  great  Secre- 

325 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


tary  of  the  Treasury,  but  he  remained  throughout  his 
service  a  stranger  to  the  President.  The  Secretary 
was  a  man  of  culture,  and  was  an  eminent  statesman 
when  Lincoln  was  yet  unknown  outside  of  Illinois. 
He  never  could  persuade  himself  to  accept  the  latter's 
elevation  above  him. 

Worst  of  all,  he  was  totally  without  a  sense  of 
humor,  and  that  deficiency  hopelessly  and  pathetic- 
ally separated  the  two  men.  "The  truth  is,"  Chase 
observed  with  all  his  solemn  seriousness,  "I  have 
never  been  able  to  make  a  joke  out  of  this  war."  He 
was  a  persistent  and  open  critic  of  the  President,  at 
whose  council  table  he  sat.  "He  may  have  been  a 
good  flatboatman  and  rail-splitter,"  he  admitted  to 
one  of  his  correspondents,  in  a  flippant  reference  to 
the  President,  but  he  failed  to  appreciate  Lincoln's 
statesmanship. 

His  constant  faultfinding  with  the  President  and 
his  associates  aided  in  finally  bringing  on  a  serious 
crisis.  When  the  administration  was  well-nigh  over- 
whelmed with  disaster  in  the  field  and  defeat  at  the 
polls,  the  Republican  senators,  still  cherishing  the 
delusion  that  Lincoln  was  not  his  own  master,  de- 
termined to  rescue  him  from  Seward's  influence, 
which  they  thought  was  wrecking  the  administration, 
and  place  him  under  the  wiser  guidance  of  Chase. 
They  did  not  dream  that  the  entire  cabinet  could  go 

326 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    CABINET 

and  a  new  one  come  without  affecting  the  President's 
policies. 

A  caucus  T/as  held,  and  a  delegation  of  leading 
senators  was  sent  to  force  the  retirement  of  the 
Secretary  of  State.  Lincoln  received  them  without 
showing  any  resentment,  and  invited  them  to  return 
in  the  evening.  When  they  came  at  the  appointed 
time,  they  were  surprised  to  find  that  he  had  as- 
sembled all  the  members  of  the  cabinet  except 
Seward,  and  the  two  groups  were  thus  obliged  to 
discuss  the  situation  face  to  face. 

This  unexpected  meeting  resulted  in  clearing  the 
air  and  in  silencing  several  of  the  senators.  Seward 
offered  his  resignation,  and  Chase  felt  that  he  had 
been  exposed  in  a  position  where  it  was  only  proper 
for  him  to  show  the  same  self-sacrificing  spirit.  He 
came  to  see  the  President  the  next  morning,  with  his 
written  resignation  in  his  hand.  While  he  was  still 
hesitating  to  present  it,  however,  Lincoln  approached 
him,  and  guessing  what  the  irresolute  Secretary  held 
in  h*s  hand  he  reached  for  the  paper.  Chase  could 
do  nothing  less  than  deliver  it  to  him  and  take  his 
departure. 

Lincoln  was  made  happy  thus  to  have  the  two 
rivals  on  an  equal  footing.  He  sat  down  at  once  and 
wrote  to  both  of  them,  declining  to  accept  their 
resignations,  whereupon  they  resumed  their  duties* 

327 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


"Now,"  said  Lincoln,  with  a  smile  of  satisfaction, 
"I  can  ride;  I  have  got  a  pumpkin  in  each  end  of  my 
bag."  He  had  retained  the  two  factions  in  his  ser- 
vice in  order  that  they  should  balance  each  other, 
and  had  reorganized  his  cabinet  without  losing 
either  of  his  able  secretaries. 

After  that  experience  with  the  President,  the  sen- 
ators concluded  that  he  knew  enough  to  conduct  his 
own  affairs,  and  they  let  him  alone.  They  could 
sympathize  with  Horace  Greeley,  who  adopted  the 
prudent  policy  of  keeping  away  from  the  White 
House.  "Lincoln  is  too  sharp  for  me,"  the  famous 
editor  declared;  "every  time  I  go  near  him,  he  winds 
me  around  his  finger." 

With  equal  tact  and  skill,  the  President  made 
a  much-needed  change  in  the  head  of  the  War 
Department.  Secretary  Cameron,  a  powerful  poli- 
tician, had  not  conducted  this  most  important  de- 
partment to  the  satisfaction  of  his  chief  and  the 
country.  Lincoln  succeeded  in  the  delicate  task  of 
securing  his  withdrawal  from  it  without  wounding 
his  feelings,  and  appointed  in  his  place  Edwin  M. 
Stanton,  a  Democrat,  who  had  shown  himself  an  out- 
spoken personal  and  political  enemy  of  the  President. 

Stanton,  who  was  a  lawyer  in  Washington,  had 
not  entered  the  White  House  since  Lincoln's  ap- 
pearance there,  and  had  been  free  with  his  criticisms 

328 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CABINET 

of  the  administration.  All  this  counted  for  nothing 
against  his  fitness  for  the  office.  Lincoln's  nature 
was  a  stranger  to  the  spirit  of  revenge.  He  did  not 
have  to  forgive  the  insult  he  received  at  Stanton's 
hands  the  first  time  they  met  in  the  reaper  case  in 
Cincinnati  a  few  years  before,  or  his  bitter  criticism 
of  the  administration;   he  could  calmly  ignore  them. 

The  new  Secretary  of  War  brought  to  his  duties 
a  patriotic  devotion  that  was  almost  fanatical  and 
an  energy  that  thrilled  the  dispirited  armies.  He 
forgot  himself,  the  President,  and  every  one  else  in 
his  rage  for  the  success  of  the  Union  arms.  "Now, 
we  will  have  some  fighting,"  was  his  grim  watch- 
word. He  trod  intrigue  and  influence  like  serpents 
under  his  ruthless  heel.  He  would  have  no  secret 
influences  in  his  department.  Taking  his  stand 
each  day  at  a  certain  hour  to  receive  his  callers, — 
senators,  generals,  and  all  alike, — he  placed  beside 
him  a  stenographer  who  took  down  a  report  of 
everything  that  was  said. 

Men  rushed  to  the  White  House  in  offended 
dignity  to  complain  of  the  high-handed  measures 
of  the  new  Secretary.  To  smooth  the  ruffled  feel- 
ings of  one  of  them,  Lincoln  told  a  story.  "We 
may,"  he  said,  "have  to  treat  Stanton  as  they  are 
sometimes  obliged  to  treat  a  Methodist  minister 
I  know  out  West.     He  gets  wrought  up  to  so  high 

329 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


a  pitch  of  excitement  in  his  prayers  and  exhorta- 
tions that  they  put  bricks  in  his  pockets  to  keep 
him  down.  But  I  guess,"  the  President  concluded 
with  a  twinkle,  " we'll  let  him  jump  awhile  first." 

A  Governor  who  came  to  the  White  House  in  a  rage 
over  some  act  of  Stanton's  was  sent  away  in  a  better 
frame  of  mind,  but  without  receiving  any  concession. 
Lincoln  was  asked  to  tell  how  he  appeased  him,  and 
he  said  he  did  it  the  same  way  that  an  Illinois  farmer 
got  rid  of  a  big  log  which  lay  in  the  middle  of  his 
field :  he  "  ploughed  around  "  the  wrathful  Governor. 
"  But,"  the  President  confessed,  "  it  took  me  nearly 
three  hours  to  do  it,  and  I  was  in  mortal  fear  all  the 
time  that  he  would  discover  what  I  was  up  to." 

No  doubt  Lincoln  secretly  rejoiced  in  the  very 
violence  of  Stanton's  temper  as  a  quality  which  he 
himself  lacked,  and  was  glad  to  employ  it  in  the 
service  of  his  administration.  When  a  man  who  had 
wheedled  the  President  into  giving  him  a  note  of 
introduction  to  the  Secretary  hastened  back  to  the 
White  House  to  tell  him  that  Stanton  had  angrily 
torn  up  the  President's  card  and  thrown  it  in  the 
waste  basket,  Lincoln  looked  upon  it  as  a  good  joke. 
"Well,  that's  just  like  Stanton,"  he  exclaimed  with 
real  enjoyment  of  the  situation. 

A  Congressman  who  went  to  the  Secretary  with 
an  order  from  the    President  came  back  to  report 

33° 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CABINET 

that  Stanton  ignored  the  order  and  said  the  President 
was  a  fool.  Lincoln  only  answered  that  if  Stanton 
said  he  was  a  fool,  he  must  be  a  fool,  as  "Stanton  is 
nearly  always  right  and  generally  says  what  hemeans.,, 

To  another  man  who  begged  him  to  overrule 
Stanton's  refusal  of  a  pass  through  the  military 
lines,  the  President  remarked  with  a  helpless  air, 
"I  can  do  nothing;  for  you  must  know  that  I  have 
very  little  influence  with  this  administration." 

Nevertheless,  in  his  own  quiet  way,  Lincoln  took 
care  to  slip  a  few  bricks  into  the  pockets  of  his  ram- 
pant Secretary  of  War  as  occasion  required.  If  un- 
checked in  his  remorseless  passion  for  the  triumph 
of  the  Union,  he  might  have  shut  the  gates  of  mercy 
and  set  up  an  iron-handed  despotism  that  would 
have  wrecked  the  cause  which  he  had  so  much  at 
heart.  Lincoln  ruled  him  with  a  forbearance  and 
firmness  which  gave  the  government  the  aid  of 
his  great  powers,  while  restraining  him  from  harming 
its  interests. 

When  the  capital  was  in  peril  from  Lee's  first  in- 
vasion, and  Lincoln  determined  to  recall  McClellan 
to  the  command  of  the  army,  he  knew  that  Stanton 
would  never  sanction  the  step,  and  he  acted 
without  consulting  him.  The  Secretary  when  he 
heard  of  it  came  to  the  White  House  in  an  ugly 
mood.     The    President    met    him    in    the    kindest 

331 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


spirit,  but  in  terms  marked  with  such  strong  decision 
that  there  could  be  no  appeal,  he  told  him  he  had 
given  the  order  and  he  alone  would  stand  responsible 
for  it  before  the  country. 

At  another  time  when  Lincoln  gave  a  permit 
without  knowing  that  it  was  contrary  to  the  wishes 
of  both  Grant  and  Stanton,  the  latter  positively 
refused  to  comply  with  it.  The  President  regretted 
his  act,  but  he  had  given  his  word  and  felt  he  m^t 
see  it  through,  in  order  to  avoid  a  serious  difficulty 
with  powerful  persons  who  were  concerned  in  the 
matter.     He  said  therefore:  — 

"Mr.  Secretary,  I  reckon  you'll  have  to  execute 
the  order." 

"Mr.  President,"  Stanton  replied  with  feeling, 
"I  cannot  do  it;    the  order  is  an  improper  one." 

"Mr.  Secretary,"  Lincoln  persisted  with  a  look 
of  determination,  "it  will  have  to  be  done." 

That  was  enough.  No  man  could  have  a  quarrel 
with  Lincoln,  and  Stanton  obeyed  without  further 
protest.  Then,  always  fair,  the  President  wrote 
to  Grant  explaining  in  plain  words  that  the  permit 
was  a  blunder  on  his  own  part  and  that  Stanton 
should  not  be  blamed  for  it. 

"He  might  appear  to  go  Seward's  way  one  day," 
Grant  said  in  reviewing  Lincoln's  leadership,  "and 
Stanton's  another;    but  all  the  time  he  was  going 

3S2 


LINCOLN  AND   HIS   CABINET 

his  own  course  and  they  with  him.  It  was  that 
gentle  firmness  in  carrying  out  his  own  will  without 
argument,  force,  or  friction  that  formed  the  basis." 

The  bravery  and  constancy  of  the  man  gave  him 
the  lead  without  effort  on  his  part.  His  patience 
was  a  large  part  of  his  strength.  His  temper  was 
slow  and  under  excellent  control.  He  never  spoke 
in  haste,  acted  in  haste,  or  moved  in  haste.  No 
member  of  his  cabinet  ever  heard  a  word  of  fault- 
finding from  him  or  received  even  a  frown. 

Yet  if  it  suited  him,  he  could  speak  with  positive 
ness.  When  Halleck  as  General-in-chief  of  the 
army  dared  to  ask  that  one  of  the  Secretaries 
be  dropped,  Lincoln  bluntly  replied,  "I  propose  to 
be  myself  the  judge  as  to  when  a  member  of  the 
cabinet  shall  be  dismissed."  Again,  to  suppress 
a  quarrel  between  the  members  themselves,  he  felt 
obliged  to  read  the  cabinet  a  rather  stern  lecture, 
in  which  he  said  he  did  not  wish  to  hear  more  of 
such  a  thing  "here  or  elsewhere,  now  or  hereafter." 

While  compelled  by  his  position  to  be  the  head 
of  his  administration,  and  sometimes  to  overrule 
his  subordinates,  he  seldom  interfered  in  the  affairs 
of  any  department  other  than  the  War  Department, 
where  as  Commander-in-chief  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  take  a  close  and  active  interest. 

Incapable  of  jealousy,  he  left  the  members  of  his 

333 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


cabinet  free  to  conduct  their  respective  branches 
of  the  public  service  in  their  own  way  and  to  reap 
for  themselves  whatever  fame  their  success  brought 
them.  He  was  ignorant  of  the  details  of  their  duties 
and  did  not  try  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  them, 
trusting  entirely  to  their  judgment  and  experience. 
He  had  no  taste  for  desk  work,  and  with  his  remark- 
able memory  he  was  able  to  carry  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States  in  his  hat. 

"Money,"  Lincoln  cried  to  some  bankers.  "I 
don't  know  anything  about  money.  I  never  had 
enough  of  my  own  to  fret  me,  and  I  have  no  opinion 
about  it  anyway.  Go  see  Chase.**  The  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  was  as  innocent  as  he  of  finance 
in  the  beginning  of  the  administration,  but  with  a 
high  order  of  intelligence  he  had  built  up  a  sys- 
tem which  brought  in  the  three  billions  required 
for  the  expenses  of  the  army  and  enough  more 
to  carry  on  the  rest  of  the  public  work.  It  stands 
in  history  as  a  great  achievement  and  wholly 
to  his  credit.  Lincoln  had  the  sound  common 
sense  not  to  waste  his  time  in  meddling  with  the 
work  which  he  appointed  another  to  do  and  who 
gave  all  his  thought  and  strength  to  the  task. 

Unfortunately  Chase's  extraordinary  abilities  were 
impaired  by  a  childish  vanity  and  a  peevish  temper. 
He  was  a  poor  chooser  of  men,  and  whenever  the 

334 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CABINET 

President  saw  fit  to  revise  or  interfere  with  his  ap- 
pointments, he  took  offence.  Resignation  was  his 
favorite  way  of  showing  resentment,  and  Lincoln 
coaxed  him  out  of  several  such  fits  of  ill  humor. 

"I  went  directly  up  to  him  with  his  resignation 
in  my  hand,"  he  recalled,  in  describing  one  expe- 
rience of  this  kind  when  he  had  driven  out  to  his 
Secretary's  house,  "and  putting  my  arm  around 
his  neck,  said  to  him,  '  Chase,  here  is  a  paper  with 
which  I  wish  to  have  nothing  to  do.  Take  it  back 
and  be  reasonable;'  I  had  to  plead  with  him  a  long 
time." 

In  his  restless  ambition  to  be  President  and  in 
his  contempt  for  Lincoln's  qualifications  for  the  place, 
Chase  finally  permitted  himself  to  be  a  candi- 
date against  his  chief.  It  was  at  a  time  when  Lin- 
coln was  pursued  by  opponents,  and  the  outlook 
for  his  reelection  was  dark.  Yet  he  patiently  bore 
with  this  opposition  in  his  own  official  household. 

Chase  himself  came  to  see  the  false  position  which 
he  was  occupying  and  offered  to  resign.  Lincoln 
answered  that  he  had  ignored  the  entire  matter  as 
far  as  he  could.  He  had  refused  to  read  the  circulars 
issued  in  behalf  of  the  Secretary's  candidacy  and 
had  not  encouraged  any  one  to  discuss  the  subject 
in  his  hearing.  He  concluded  by  declining  to  accept 
his  resignation. 

335 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


"Whether  you  shall  remain  at  the  head  of  the 
Treasury  Department  is  a  question/'  the  President 
added  in  fine  temper,  "which  I  shall  not  allow  myself 
to  consider  from  any  standpoint  other  than  my 
judgment  of  the  public  service,  and  in  that  view 
X  do  not  perceive  occasion  for  change/' 

Long  after  the  movement  for  Chase's  nomination 
had  perished  in  its  absurdity  and  Lincoln  himself 
was  nominated  again,  the  Secretary  once  more  lost 
his  patience  with  the  President  and  resigned.  A 
grave  financial  crisis  was  upon  the  country,  and  it 
was  generally  a  time  of  gloom  for  the  Union.  Lin- 
coln, however,  had  the  courage  to  face  the  inevitable, 
and  with  a  promptness  which  took  Chase  by  sur- 
prise he  accepted  the  resignation  on  the  ground 
that  the  differences  between  them  had  become  so 
embarrassing  that  it  was  best  they  should  part. 
"I  had  found  a  good  deal  of  embarrassment  from 
him,"  the  retiring  Secretary  in  his  unfortunate  lack 
of  humor  confided  to  his  diary,  "but  what  he  had 
found  from  me  I  cannot  imagine." 

Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  ungrudgingly  said, 
"Of  all  the  great  men  I  have  known,  Chase  is  equal 
to  about  one  and  a  half  of  the  best  of  them." 

The  Chief-justiceship  of  the  United  States  soon 
became  vacant.  With  a  magnanimity  rarely  equaled, 
Lincoln  conferred  on  Chase  this  highest  honor  in  a 

336 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   CABINET 

President's  gift.  There  is  genuine  pathos  in  this 
entry  which  the  ex-Secretary  made  in  his  diary  at  a 
time  when  Lincoln,  ignoring  their  unhappy  estrange- 
ment, had  determined  to  crown  his  great  services  with 
a  splendid  prize,  "I  feel  tnat  I  do  not  know  him." 
Others  whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  sit  at  the 
cabinet  table  of  Lincoln  were  more  happily  gifted 
by  nature  to  appreciate  the  homely  yet  lofty  nature 
which  swayed  their  counsels  by  its  moral  force. 
Seward  pronounced  it  a  character  "made  and 
moulded  by  Divine  Power  to  save  a  nation,"  and 
Stanton  beheld  in  his  chief  "the  most  perfect  ruler 
of  men  the  world  has  ever  seen." 


337 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

LINCOLN   AND    HIS    GENERALS 


All  the  great  soldiers  destined  to  reap  the  harvest  of  glory,  in 
obscurity  when  the  war  began.  —  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan 
and  Thomas  unknown  men  in  1861.  —  The  advantage  of  th' 
Confederacy  in  its  military  leaders.  —  Lincoln's  trials  with 
McClellan  and  the  earlier  commanders.  —  His  remarkable  letter 
to  Hooker,  January  26,  1863.  —  How  he  applied  his  gift  of 
common  sense  to  the  art  of  war.  —  Some  of  his  homely  words  of 
wisdom  regarding  strategy.  —  No  meddlesome  spirit.  —  Stand- 
ing by  Grant  when  the  general  was  a  stranger  and  friendless. 
—  "I  can't  spare  this  man;  he  fights."  —  His  faith  in  him. 
"You  were  right  and  I  was  wrong."  —  Grant,  General-in- 
chief  in  the  spring  of  1864.  —  Grant  and  Sherman's  estimates 
of  Lincoln.  —  His  model  relations  with  his  generals.  —  His 
great  achievement  in  maintaining  the  civil  power  supreme, 
and  himself,  the  elected  chief  of  the  people,  superior  to  military 
heroes. 

The  great  captains  destined  to  lead  the  armies 
of  the  Union  to  victory  were  unknown  men  when 
the  war  began. 

Grant  had  resigned  his  captaincy  in  the  regular 
army  and  was  a  clerk  in  his  father's  leather  store 
at  Galena,  Illinois,  at  a  salary  of  fifty  dollars  a  month. 
His  duties  were  to  keep  books  and  buy  hides  from 
the  farmers'  wagons.  He  was  thirty-nine  and  his  life 
a  failure,  although  he  had  shown  in  the  Mexican  cam- 
paign that  he  was  a  good  hand  at  the  trade  of  war. 

1$ 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    GENERALS 

Sherman,  too,  had  resigned  from  the  regular 
army,  in  which  he  had  risen  to  the  rank  of  captain 
in  the  commissary  department.  He  had  missed 
active  service  in  the  Mexican  War,  having  been  on 
a  detail  in  California  at  that  time.  After  leaving 
the  army  he  tried  banking  and  the  practice  of  the 
law,  each  of  which  occupations  he  abandoned,  and 
he  was  at  the  head  of  a  military  school  in  Louisiana 
when  that  state  prepared  to  secede.  At  the  out- 
break of  the  war  he  was  forty-one  and  the  president 
of  a  street  railway  in  St.  Louis. 

Sheridan  was  only  thirty  and  a  captain  in  the 
quartermaster's  department.  Thomas  also  was  in 
the  army  and  a  major.  Meade,  who  was  forty-six, 
had  been  in  the  service  most  of  the  time  since  leav- 
ing West  Point,  twenty-five  years  before.  Hancock 
was  thirty-five  and  a  captain.  McPherson  was 
a  lieutenant.  Whether  in  the  army  or  out,  the 
generals  who  reaped  the  harvest  of  glory  were  veiled 
in  obscurity  when  the  war  came.  Fortune  seemed 
determined  to  keep  them  in  concealment  until,  like 
the  stars  of  the  theater,  the  stage  of  action  was  made 
ready  for  their  entrance  upon  it. 

Grant  vainly  applied  to  the  War  Department  and 
to  the  governors  of  three  states  for  a  commission; 
his  applications  were  pigeon-holed.  Sherman,  who 
had  a  brother  in  the  Senate,  was  not  entirely  neg- 

339 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


lected.  He  received  the  offer  of  the  chief  clerkship 
of  the  War  Department,  but  feeling  that  he  would 
be  more  useful  with  the  sword  than  with  the  pen, 
he  refused  the  place  and  bided  his  time  in  the  street- 
car office. 

Sheridan  was  sent  out  to  buy  horses,  the  one  task 
of  all  for  which  he  probably  was  the  least  fitted. 
Thomas  was  under  suspicion  because  he  was  a 
Virginian,  and  his  superiors  could  not  understand 
why  he  had  not  gone  over  to  the  South.  They  did 
not  deem  it  safe  to  trust  him  with  an  independent 
command.  Thus  it  chanced  that  the  men  who  were 
to  bear  the  flag  of  the  Union  to  its  final  triumph 
were  all  hidden  from  view  in  the  early  days  of  the 
war. 

Fate  dealt  more  kindly  with  the  Confederacy. 
Its  President  was  himself  a  soldier,  trained  at  West 
Point  and  in  the  war  with  Mexico,  and  he  had 
besides  been  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States. 
Whether  due  to  Jefferson  Davis's  acquaintance 
with  military  men  and  military  affairs,  or  to  some 
other  cause,  the  Confederate  government  discovered 
and  developed  at  the  outset  some  of  its  greatest 
commanders — men  like  Lee,  Johnston,  Longstreet, 
and  Jackson. 

Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  knew  nothing  of  war 
or    warriors.     He    was    wholly    dependent    on    the 

340 


LINCOLN  AND  HIS  GENERALS 

professional  advice  of  the  men  whom  he  found  at 
the  head  of  the  regular  army.  Scott,  the  command- 
ing general,  was  seventy-five  and  in  his  dotage, 
while  the  next  officer  in  rank,  the  commander  of 
the  department  of  the  East,  General  Wool,  was 
seventy-three.  Another  aged  major-general,  Twiggs, 
in  command  of  the  department  of  Texas,  abandoned 
his  entire  charge  to  the  Confederacy,  and  the  Ad- 
jutant-geneial  himself  went  over  to  the  enemy. 

The  duty  of  constructing  an  army  thus  was  thrust 
upon  Lincoln,  feebly  aided  by  Scott.  The  Secretary 
of  War,  Cameron,  was  a  politician  and  ignorant  of 
military  matters. 

Governors  and  senators  pressed  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  political  favorites.  While  Lincoln  yielded 
to  this  pressure,  he  accepted  in  most  instances  the 
counsels  of  General  Scott.  At  the  suggestion  of 
the  old  General,  the  command  of  the  army  in  the 
field  was  offered  to  Robert  E.  Lee;  but  the  latter 
listened  to  the  call  of  his  state  rather  than  to  that 
of  his  country.  McClellan  was  Scott's  next  choice, 
and  he  also  selected  Halleck  to  take  charge  of  the 
operations  in  the  West.  To  both  of  these  men  the 
President  clung,  long  after  they  had  lost  the  favor 
of  the  cabinet  and  the  public. 

Lincoln  and  McClellan  first  met  in  Illinois,  where 
*he  latter  was  a  railway  official.     Being  a  Democrat, 

Ml 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


he  supported  Douglas  in  his  campaign  for  the  Senate 
and  carried  him  over  the  state  in  his  private  car* 
While  Lincoln  ignored  their  past  political  unfriend* 
liness,  McClellan  seemed  to  regard  him  rather 
as  the  poor  country  lawyer  whom  he  had  known 
in  the  West  than  as  the  Commander-in-chief  who 
had  lifted  him  to  his  high  eminence  in  the  army. 

His  staff  were  cautioned  against  imparting  military 
secrets  to  the  supposedly  guileless  and  garrulous 
President,  who,  not  standing  on  the  order  of  prece- 
dence, was  in  the  habit  of  seeking  out  his  young 
general,  whom  he  fondly  addressed  as  "George," 
at  his  home  in  the  city  instead  of  troubling  him  to 
come  to  the  White  House, 

One  evening  when  he  called,  McClellan  refused 
even  to  see  him.  The  General  entered  his  house 
and  went  upstairs,  sending  down  word  to  Lincoln, 
who  modestly  sat  waiting  for  him  in  his  anteroom, 
that  he  was  going  to  bed  and  must  be  excused. 
After  that  incident  they  met  as  a  rule  only  at  the 
White  House  and  on  official  business. 

Even  there  the  soldier  did  not  always  show  the 
respect  due  to  his  chief.  He  refused,  in  the  presence 
of  the  cabinet,  the  President's  request  that  he  sub- 
mit his  plans,  at  a  time  when  the  public  patience 
was  worn  out  by  the  army's  delays.  On  another 
occasion   he   failed   entirely  to    respond    to   a   sum- 

342 


LINCOLN   AND    HIS    GENERALS 

mons  to  meet  the  President;  but  Lincoln  remarked 
to  the  indignant  men  who  were  waiting  with  him, 
"Never  mind;  I  would  hold  McClellan's  horse  if 
he  would  only  bring  us  success/' 

The  General  was  a  young  man.  His  rise  had 
been  too  rapid  for  his  own  good,  and  he  mistook  Lin- 
coln's patient  deference  for  weakness.  His  letters  to 
his  wife  overflowed  with  boyish  conceit.  "  By  some 
strange  operation  of  magic  I  seem  to  have  become 
the  power  of  the  land,"  he  confided  to  her.  Growing 
Napoleonic  in  spirit  as  well  as  in  name,  at  another 
time  he  informed  her,  "I  would  cheerfully  take  the 
dictatorship  and  agree  to  lay  down  my  life  when  the 
country  is  saved." 

McClellan's  constant  grievance  was  a  lack  of 
support,  both  in  men  and  supplies,  while  his  chronic 
weakness  was  his  unwillingness  to  make  the  best  of 
what  he  had,  and  to  remember  that  the  President 
and  others  in  authority,  as  well  as  himself,  had  their 
duties  and  their  troubles. 

When  Lincoln  at  last  replaced  him,  after  a  trial 
of  more  than  a  year,  he  selected  as  his  successor 
the  man  next  in  rank,  Burnside,  in  spite  of  the  latter's 
own  protest  that  he  was  "not  competent  to  command 
such  a  large  army."  It  was  hoped  that  the  new 
General's  modesty  would  avail  more  than  his  prede- 
cessor's   self-assurance;    but   in   a   month   he  went 

343 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


down  in  the  disastrous  battle  of  Fredericksburg,  and 
Hooker,  the  next  man  in  line,  took  his  place. 

Lincoln  wrote  the  new  commander  an  extraor- 
dinary letter,  such  a  letter  as  has  seldom  been  ad- 
dressed to  a  man  at  the  head  of  a  great  army  by 
any  civil  official.  In  this  unusual  communication 
he  said  to  Hooker:  — 

"I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and  skilful  soldier, 
which  of  course  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do  not 
mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which  you  are 
right.  You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is 
a  valuable,  if  not  an  indispensable,  quality.  You 
are  ambitious,  which  within  reasonable  bounds 
does  good  rather  than  harm ;  but  I  think  that  during 
General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambition,  and  thwarted  him 
as  much  as  you  could,  in  which  you  did  a  great 
wrong  to  the  country  and  to  a  most  meritorious  and 
honorable  brother  officer.  I  have  heard  in  such 
a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently  saying  that 
both  the  army  and  the  government  needed  a  dic- 
tator. 

"Of  course  it  is  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it, 
that  I  have  given  you  the  command.  Only  those  gen- 
erals who  gain  successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What 
I  now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk 
ihe  dictatorship.' ' 

344 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   GENERALS 

These  plain  words  of  reproof  and  warning  combined, 
as  only  Lincoln  could,  firmness  with  good  humor. 
They  sobered  rather  than  angered  Hooker.  "He 
talks  to  me  like  a  father/'  he  said.  "I  will  not 
answer  this  letter  until  I  have  won  him  a  great 
victory." 

At  this  time,  Lincoln  was  most  sorely  tried.  The 
war  had  been  going  on  two  years,  and  he  was  not 
sure  he  had  yet  found  a  general.  He  was  in  a 
mood  to  despair  of  shoulder  straps  and  the  military 
profession.  Man  after  man  had  risen  in  the  magnifi- 
cence of  a  splendid  new  uniform  and  the  mystery 
of  the  art  of  war.  Lincoln  had  watched  them  come 
on  at  first  with  a  layman's  simple  confidence,  but 
afterward  with  increasing  distrust,  flourishing  their 
swords  and  issuing  high-sounding  proclamations  to 
their  troops. 

Napoleon  seemed  to  be  the  favorite  model  among 
them.  Too  often,  alas,  their  ambitions  outran  their 
performances.  McClellan  was  going  to  "crush 
the  rebels  in  one  campaign."  Again  he  confidently 
promised,  "In  ten  days  I  shall  be  in  Richmond. " 
Now,  Hooker  was  filled  with  the  same  confidence, 
and  talked  so  much  and  jauntily  of  taking  Richmond, 
that  Lincoln's  heart  sank  at  the  familiar  sound  of  it. 

Although  Halleck,  the  General-in-chief,  was  at 
his  elbow  to  serve  as  military  adviser,  the  President 

345 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


in  his  responsibility  to  the  country  and  to  history 
had  been  driven  slowly  to  undertake  the  direction  of 
the  armies.  He  sat  up  nights  with  military  books, 
and  his  eye  was  continually  on  the  war  maps.  He 
found,  probably  greatly  to  his  surprise,  that  his  gift 
of  plain  common  sense  had  its  usefulness  even  in 
the  strategy  of  warfare.  Little  by  little  he  gave 
his  generals  the  benefit  of  it,  but  always  with  a  good 
deal  of  diffidence. 

"With  these  continuous  rains,"  he  once  reminded 
McClellan,  "I  am  very  anxious  about  the  Chicka- 
hominy  —  so  close  in  your  rear  and  crossing  your 
line  of  communication.  Please  look  to  it."  "By 
proper  scout  lookouts,"  he  telegraphed  General 
Fremont,  "and  beacons  of  smoke  by  day  and  fires 
by  night  you  can  always  have  timely  notice  of  the 
enemy's  approach.  I  know  not  as  to  you,  but  by 
some  this  has  been  too  much  neglected." 

"I  state  my  general  idea  of  this  war  to  be,"  he 
wrote  to  General  Buell,  "that  we  have  the  greater 
numbers,  and  the  enemy  has  the  greater  facility 
of  concentrating  forces  upon  points  of  collision; 
diat  we  must  fail  unless  we  find  some  way  of  making 
our  advantage  an  overmatch  for  his."  He  added, 
however,  that  he  did  not  offer  his  views  as  orders 
and  would  blame  the  General  if  he  should  adopt 
f.hem  contrary  to  his  own  judgment. 

346 


LINCOLN  AND  HIS  GENERALS 

"You  would  be  better  off  anywhere,"  he  wrote 
General  Banks,  "for  not  having  a  thousand  wagons 
doing  nothing  but  hauling  the  forage  to  feed  the 
animals  that  draw  them."  "He  who  does  some- 
thing at  the  head  of  one  regiment,"  he  gently  ad- 
monished General  Hunter,  "will  eclipse  him  who 
does  nothing  at  the  head  of  a  hundred." 

"I  would  not  take  any  risk,"  he  cautioned  Hooker, 
when  urging  him  to  begin  the  pursuit  of  Lee,  which 
reached  its  glorious  climax  in  the  great  victory  at 
Gettysburg,  "of  being  entangled  upon  the  river, 
like  an  ox  jumped  half  over  a  fence,  and  liable  to 
be  torn  by  dogs  front  and  rear,  without  a  fair  chance 
to  gore  one  way  and  kick  the  other."  "If  he  stays 
where  he  is,"  he  telegraphed  again  to  Hooker  re- 
garding Lee,  "fret  him,  and  fret  him."  "If  the 
head  of  Lee's  army  is  at  Martinsburg  and  the  tail 
of  it  on  the  plank  road  between  Fredericksburg 
and  Chancellorsville,"  so  ran  one  of  his  messages 
to  the  same  General  early  in  the  Gettysburg  cam- 
paign, "the  animal  must  be  very  slim  somewhere. 
Could  you  not  break  him  ?" 

In  trying  to  compose  the  untimely  quarrel  between 
Halleck  and  Hooker,  he  wrote  to  the  latter,  "If 
you  and  he  would  use  the  same  frankness  to  one 
another  and  to  me  that  I  use  to  both  of  you,  there 
would   be   no   difficulty."     All   he   asked,   he   said. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


was  that  the  two  generals  should  harmonize  their 
judgments  and  go  ahead,  "with  my  poor  mite  added, 
if  indeed  he  and  you  shall  think  it  entitled  to  any 
consideration  at  all." 

In  such  instances  as  these,  it  is  seen  how  Lincoln 
sought  to  leaven  the  counsels  and  campaigns  of 
his  commanders  with  simple  common  sense.  The 
same  common  sense,  however,  saved  him  from 
meddling  with  men  who  went  about  their  business 
and  let  him  alone. 

There  rose  a  general  with  whom  he  never  inter- 
fered, to  whom  he  never  offered  a  word  of  advice. 
This  was  Grant,  who  got  into  the  war  by  leading  to 
the  front  a  mutinous  Illinois  regiment,  from  which 
the  fair-weather  political  colonels  had  fled  in  terror. 

Without  influence  and  opposed  by  jealous  su- 
periors, this  soldier  mounted  the  ladder  of  military 
rank  by  strictly  and  silently  minding  his  own  business. 
He  never  asked  for  promotion.  He  was  heard  from 
in  Washington  only  when  he  had  some  action  to 
report.  He  did  not  stop  to  clamor  for  more  men 
or  to  complain  of  a  lack  of  supplies.  He  took  what 
was  given  him  and  went  ahead. 

He  must  have  puzzled  and  amazed  Lincoln,  this 
strange  man  from  his  own  state,  whom  he  never 
had  heard  of  until  he  was  winning  victories  for 
him.     It   is  doubtful   if,  when   Grant  was  charged 

348 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   GENERALS 

with  intemperance,  he  said  he  would  like  to  send 
the  same  brand  of  liquor  to  other  generals,  but  the 
familiar  story  well  expresses  the  President's  con- 
fidence. 

While  his  victory  at  Fort  Donelson  was  yet  fresh, 
Grant  was  placed  under  arrest  by  Halleck  for  a 
petty  military  offence,  but  Lincoln  caused  him  to 
be  released  and  restored  to  his  command.  The 
early  reports  from  the  battle  of  Shiloh  gave  the  im- 
pression that  the  army  had  been  imperiled  through 
Grant's  dissipation,  and  a  storm  of  denunciation 
assailed  him.  Lincoln  sustained  him  single-handed, 
simply  saying,  "I  can't  spare  this  man;  he  fights." 

In  the  disappointments  of  the  long  Vicksburg 
campaign,  the  old  prejudices  against  the  General 
were  revived,  and  once  more  Lincoln  stood  by  him 
when  he  was  friendless.  All  the  while  the  two 
men  remained  strangers,  and  the  General  could 
not  even  know  who  it  was  that  was  shielding 
him. 

When  the  victory  came,  the  President  took  pains 
to  let  the  world  know  that  all  the  credit  belonged  to 
Grant.  "I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met 
personally,"  he  wrote  to  him;  and  after  praising  his 
campaign,  which  led  to  the  capture  of  Vicksburg, 
he  admitted  that  he  had  feared  it  was  a  mistake. 
"I  now  wish,"  Lincoln  generously  concluded,  "to 

349 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were 
right  and  I  was  wrong." 

It  was  in  the  course  of  this  movement  that  Sher- 
man developed  as  Grant's  great  lieutenant,  protesting 
to  those  who  would  give  him  a  share  in  the  congratu- 
lations over  the  Union  success  at  Vicksburg,  "Grant 
is  entitled  to  every  bit  of  credit  for  this  campaign; 
I  opposed  it." 

In  the  battles  about  Chattanooga  in  the  fall, 
Sheridan  came  in  contact  with  Grant  and  Sherman, 
and  thus  at  last  the  fortunes  of  war  brought  to- 
gether the  three  generals  whose  trusting  and  af- 
fectionate military  companionship  lasted  to  the  end, 
sealed  in  devotion  and  unstained  by  jealousy. 

The  Union  now  had  a  thoroughly  organized 
army  led  by  great  commanders.  Congress  revived 
the  grade  of  Lieutenant-general,  and  Lincoln  sum- 
moned the  victor  of  Donelson,  Vicksburg,  and  Chat- 
tanooga to  the  capital  to  receive  the  high  rank  which 
none  but  Washington,  among  American  soldiers,  had 
worn,  Scott  having  held  it  only  by  brevet. 

Notwithstanding  Grant's  renown  filled  the  land, 
he  was  unknown  at  the  seat  of  government.  His 
post  of  duty  had  been  at  the  front,  and  he  had  kept  it. 
When,  leading  a  young  son  by  the  hand,  he  walked 
up  to  the  desk  of  a  Washington  hotel  with  a  cigar 
in    his   mouth,  a  well-worn  army  hat  on  his  head, 

35o 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    GENERALS 

and  a  linen  duster  on  his  back,  the  clerk  told  him 
he  had  no  room  except  at  the  top  of  the  house. 
The  little  blue-eyed,  rusty  man,  with  rough  light 
brown  whiskers,  seemed  not  to  care  where  he  was 
sent  as  he  went  on  writing  the  name,  which  startled 
the  clerk  when  he  turned  the  register  around  and 
read  "U.  S.  Grant  and  Son,  Galena,  111." 

The  truth  is,  the  newly  arrived  guest  would  have 
preferred  the  obscurity  of  an  attic  chamber  to  the 
honors  which  were  thrust  upon  him  in  the  parlor 
suite,  to  which  he  was  promptly  assigned.  He 
never  showed  the  dread  of  the  guns  of  Vicksburg, 
which  he  betrayed  whenever  he  was  obliged  to  face 
the  noisy  enthusiasts  who  crowded  the  lobbies  of 
the  hotel,  waiting  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  him,  whik, 
as  he  tried  to  eat  his  dinner  under  the  eyes  of  the 
cheering  people  in  the  big  dining  room,  he  probably 
wished  he  was  living  off  the  country  again  down  in 
Mississippi. 

When  he  was  taken  to  the  White  House  in  the 
evening,  he  was  embarrassed  to  find  a  reception 
in  progress.  Men  and  women  drew  back  in  their 
surprise  as  they  saw  the  illustrious  soldier  led  to 
Lincoln.  The  President  clasped  his  hand  in  hearty 
gratitude  and  held  it,  while  his  little  eyes  looked 
down  upon  his  general  in  frank  curiosity.  It  was  a 
picture  ready  for  the  pages  of  history, 

35i 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


As  soon  as  the  brief  scene  was  ended,  the  visitor 
was  caught  in  an  eddying  whirl  of  eager  admirers 
and  swept  on  to  the  East  Room,  where  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  some  one  he  climbed  up  on  the  safe  heights 
of  a  sofa  and  there  timidly  submitted  himself  to 
the  gaze  of  the  people.  It  was  his  first  appearance 
as  a  lion.  When  he  had  finally  broken  the  siege 
and  escaped  to  the  outer  air,  he  was  perspiring 
from  the  ordeal  through  which  he  had  passed,  and 
hoping  that  the  "show  business"  was  ended  for 
good. 

The  next  day,  in  the  presence  of  the  Cabinet, 
he  received  his  commission  as  Lieutenant-general 
and  his  designation  as  General-in-chief  of  all  the 
armies,  East  and  West.  He  kept  out  of  sight  as 
completely  as  he  could  the  rest  of  the  day,  and  on 
the  day  following  went  to  the  headquarters  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  while  the  day  after  that 
found  him  on  his  way  back  to  Tennessee,  having 
pleased  Lincoln  not  a  little  by  declining  a  White 
House  dinner. 

War  had  become  a  business,  and  Grant  was  s.11 
business.  No  longer  did  the  commander  prance 
along  cheering  lines  at  grand  reviews,  dwell  in  state 
in  Washington,  or  issue  ringing  proclamations  to 
his  army.  The  new  General-in-chief  was  one  who 
had  always  lived  with  his  men,  who  shared  their 

352 


LINCOLN  AND  HIS  GENERALS 

hardships  and  perils,  and  who  in  uniform  and 
bearing  could  easily  be  mistaken  for  a  private 
soldier. 

Grant  pressed  matters  with  such  despatch,  that 
in  the  first  week  of  May,  while  Sherman's  army 
was  starting  southward  from  Chattanooga  on  the 
great  Georgia  campaign,  he  himself  led  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  into  the  wilderness  on  its  slow  and 
bloody  journey  to  Richmond.  This  latter  prize  was 
within  an  easy  day's  wTalk,  but  now  every  inch  of 
the  way  must  be  paved  with  Union  dead.  With 
Lee  in  front  of  him,  Grant  for  the  first  time  faced  a 
foeman  worthy  of  his  steel. 

Lincoln  no  longer  troubled  himself  with  the  direc- 
tion of  the  armies.  He  trusted  all  to  Grant  and  his 
brothers  in  arms.  "The  particulars  of  your  plan  I 
neither  know  nor  seek  to  know,"  he  told  Grant,  who 
replied,  "Should  my  success  be  less  than  I  desire  and 
expect,  the  least  I  can  say  is  that  the  fault  is  not  with 
you."  The  General-in-chief  gave  secret  orders  to 
Sherman,  which  involved  the  famous  march  to  the 
sea,  and  requested  that  Sheridan  be  placed  in  com- 
mand of  a  division. 

When   the  latter   came  to   Washington,   Lincoln 

frankly  admitted  that  he  himself,  as  well  as  Stanton, 

was  opposed  to  his   appointment  on  account  of  his 

comparative  youth,  but  had  given  it  to  him  solely 

*a  353 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


because  Grant  desired  it.  After  the  new  appointee 
had  gloriously  justified  Grant's  confidence  by  his 
victories  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  the  President 
playfully  remarked  to  "Little  Phil,"  that  although  his 
ideal  cavalry  leader  was  at  least  six  feet  four  in  height, 
he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  five  feet  four 
would  do  in  a  pinch. 

The  only  grievance  Lincoln  ever  expressed  against 
Grant  took  the  form  of  a  tribute  of  praise.  "General 
Grant/'  he  said,  "is  a  copious  worker  and  fighter,  but 
a  very  meager  writer  or  telegrapher." 

In  the  conduct  of  his  cabinet,  Lincoln  showed 
himself  a  leader  of  leaders.  In  his  relations  with  his 
generals,  he  proved  himself  a  commander  of  com- 
manders. "He  was  incontestably  the  greatest  man 
I  ever  knew,"  is  Grant's  estimate  of  him,  while  Sher- 
man said,  "Of  all  the  men  I  ever  met,  he  seemed  to 
possess  more  of  the  elements  of  greatness  combined 
with  goodness  than  any  other." 

Lincoln  did  not  go  to  the  head  of  the  group  of 
statesmen  whom  he  called  into  his  cabinet,  or  the 
galaxy  of  generals  whom  he  called  to  the  colors  of 
the  nation,  because  he  was  more  brilliant  or  more 
ambitious  than  the  others.  He  did  not  conquer 
men  by  sheer  strength,  or  trick  them  by  smartness. 
Leadership  came  to  him  because  he  had  a  purpose 
that  never  wavered,  a  heart  that  never  quailed,  a 

354 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS    GENERALS 

faith  that  never  drooped,  a  courage  that  never  shrank 
from  responsibility. 

Besides  the  possession  of  these  qualities,  he  was  a 
gentleman  among  gentlemen,  with  a  knightly  sense 
of  honor  and  a  fine  regard  for  the  feelings  of  others. 
He  dropped  men  from  the  cabinet  and  from  com- 
mand, and  moved  them  around  freely,  but  without 
quarreling  with  them  or  incurring  their  enmity. 

His  letters  and  messages  to  his  generals  are  modelr 
of  simple  frankness,  kindly  courtesy,  and  good  taste. 
As  he  confessed  to  Grant  in  congratulating  him  on 
the  capture  of  Vicksburg,  "You  were  right  and  I  was 
wrong,"  so  he  took  pains  to  admit  in  telegraphing  to 
Sherman  the  thanks  of  the  nation  for  his  capture  of 
Savannah,  "The  honor  is  all  yours,  for  I  believe  none 
of  us  went  further  than  to  acquiesce,"  and  finally, 
after  the  surrender  at  Appomattox,  he  declared  to 
the  rejoicing  nation,  "No  part  of  the  honor  for  plan 
or  execution  is  mine." 

It  is  not  easy  to  get  up  a  rivalry  with  a  man  who  is 
without  envy;  he  is  exalted  above  comparison  and 
competition.  Lincoln's  was  not  a  jealous  nature. 
If  he  had  shown  a  fear  of  a  general's  fame,  he  would 
thereby  have  lifted  him  at  once  to  his  own  level. 

His  opponents  were  always  looking  for  a  chance 
to  displace  him  in  the  confidence  of  the  people  with 
some  military  hero.     At  first  McClellan,  then  Rose- 

355 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


crans,  and  finally  Grant  was  the  favorite  among  them. 
Lincoln  was  fearful  at  one  time  that  the  conqueror  of 
Vicksburg,  in  his  innocence  of  politics,  might  lose  his 
head  and  be  tempted  to  be  a  candidate  against  him 
in  1864.  When  he  was  assured  by  Grant's  friends 
that  the  "presidential  grub"  was  not  "gnawing  at 
him,,,  he  expressed  his  sense  of  relief.  Afterward, 
when  a  movement  to  make  Grant  President  was 
openly  started,  his  only  comment  was,  "If  he  takes 
Richmond,  let  him  have  it." 

It  is  sometimes  claimed  for  Lincoln  that  he  became 
a  better  general  than  any  in  the  field.  That  may  not 
be  true.  At  any  rate,  it  was  not  a  necessary  qualifica- 
tion for  his  place.  It  was  far  more  important  that*  as 
the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  republic  and  Commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  by  the  voice  of  the  people,  he 
should  have  the  ability  to  maintain  his  supremacy 
over  his  military  subordinates.  This  he  did  at  all 
times,  and  it  stands  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
wonderful  of  his  achievements. 

There  never  was  an  hour  when  his  hand  did  not 
rule  the  giant  hosts  in  arms,  when  his  pen  was  not 
mightier  than  the  sword;  never  an  hour  of  weakness, 
tempting  a  "man  on  horseback"  to  spurn  his  au- 
thority and  seriously  dream  of  setting  up  a  military 
despotism.  For  this  signal  vindication  of  democratic 
institutions,  the  American  people  themselves  are  un- 

35$ 


LINCOLN   AND   HIS   GENERALS 

doubtedly  entitled  to  the  larger  share  of  credit,  while 
no  small  share  is  due  to  the  democratic  characters  of 
the  military  chieftains.  With  a  weak  or  wilful  man 
in  Lincoln's  place,  however,  it  would  have  been 
impossible.  He  would  surely  have  been  overridden 
by  events  and  men  too  powerful  for  him  to  direct 
and  control. 

This  was  at  once  the  test  and  the  triumph  of  a  gov- 
ernment by  the  people.  All  things  considered,  prob- 
ably it  is  without  a  parallel  in  history.  In  a  long  and 
mighty  civil  war  in  a  democracy,  with  a  million  men 
under  arms,  the  civil  power  remained  always  supreme, 
and  the  lawfully  elected  chief,  a  plain  citizen,  who 
never  had  set  a  squadron  in  the  field,  stood  forth  at 
the  end,  easily  the  foremost  figure,  without  even 
a  rival  among  the  victorious  generals  and  martial 
heroes  who  surrounded  him. 


357 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

LINCOLN    IN    VICTORY 


His  noblest  qualities  called  out  in  the  hour  of  success  as  his  hand 
turned  to  the  new  task  of  binding  up  the  wounds  of  the  Union. 

—  Striving  to  win  the  South  by  magnanimity.  —  Applying 
Christian  principles  and  the  golden  rule  to  statecraft.  —  Dis- 
appointed in  his  efforts  for  peace  at  Hampton  Roads  conference, 
February  3,  1 865.  —  How  he  disposed  of  Charles  I  as  an  example. 

—  His  plan  to  offer  to  pay  the  South  for  its  slaves  defeated  in 
the  cabinet,  February  5,  1865.  —  His  rejoicing  over  the  passage 
of  the  thirteenth  amendment.  -—  His  second  inauguration, 
March  4,  1865,  and  his  second  inaugural  address.  —  His  visit 
to  Grant's  army  at  City  Point,  Virginia,  March  22  to  April  9, 
to  supervise  terms  of  peace.  —  Lincoln  and  Grant,  Sherman 
and  Sheridan  in  conference.  —  The  fall  of  Richmond,  April  3. 

—  Lincoln  in  Richmond,  April  4  and  5.  —  Modest  bearing  of 
the  conqueror  in  the  capital  of  the  enemy.  —  The  black  freed- 
men  in  ecstasy.  —  Lincoln  in  Jefferson  Davis's  chair. — "Judge 
not,  that  ye  be  not  judged."  —  Returning  to  Washington, 
April  9.  —  Prophetic  words  from  Shakespeare. 

Victory  called  out  Lincoln's  noblest  qualities. 
He  accepted  it  as  humbly  as  he  had  borne  defeat. 

When  assured  at  the  close  of  the  military  opera- 
tions, in  the  fall  of  1864,  that  the  country  was  saved, 
and  that  in  a  brief  campaign  in  the  spring  the  Con- 
federacy would  surely  be  overthrown,  he  did  not 
pause  to  exult.  His  hand  turned  at  once  to  its  new 
task.     He  must  bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  Union 

**8 


LINCOLN   IN   VICTORY 


and  restore  it.  He  would  not  fasten  it  together  with 
bayonets  and  erect  a  rebellious  Ireland  or  a  deso- 
lated Poland  within  its  borders.  The  South,  con- 
quered by  force,  must  be  won  by  magnanimity. 

For  him,  this  was  a  grateful  duty.  No  bitterness 
rankled  in  his  great,  patient  heart.  Even  when  the 
blows  of  the  foe  rained  heavy  upon  him,  the  Con- 
federates still  were  to  him  countrymen  and  fellow- 
Americans.  His  habit  of  fairness  forbade  him  to 
hold  any  individuals,  however  high  their  stations, 
personally  responsible  for  a  great  civil  war. 

It  better  suited  his  sense  of  humor  to  refer  to  his 
adversaries  as  "the  other  side"  or  as  "these  south- 
ern gentlemen"  than  to  rail  at  them  as  "rebels." 
"Jeffy  D."  and  "Bobby  Lee"  were  his  favorite 
names  for  the  two  principal  chieftains  of  the  Con- 
federacy. When  Stonewall  Jackson  was  killed  and 
a  Washington  newspaper  printed  an  editorial  tribute 
to  that  gallant  upholder  of  the  Stars  and  Bars,  Lin- 
coln wrote  a  letter  to  the  editor,  commending  his 
article. 

No  sooner  was  he  assured  that  the  arms  of  the 
South  must  yield  to  the  Union  than  he  g^ve  his 
anxious  thought  to  winning  the  hearts  of  the  south- 
ern people.  Many,  if  not  most,  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Republican  party  were  unable  so  readily  to  c$Jm  the 
passions  which  the  long  and  desperate  strug/i*  had 

359 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


aroused  in  them.  The  radicals  were  loud  in  their 
call  for  the  hanging  of  the  foremost  Confederates,  for 
the  confiscation  of  property,  and  for  ruling  the  south- 
ern states  as  conquered  provinces.  Not  a  few  who 
had  clamored  for  a  cowardly  peace  in  the  midst  of 
war  now  lustily  cried  out  for  harsh  measures  as 
peace  drew  near.  Lincoln's  next  battle  must  be 
with  Congress  and  a  large  section  of  his  own  party. 

He  disliked  the  form  of  the  oath  which  Secretary 
Stanton  prescribed  for  those  in  the  South  who  wished 
to  swear  allegiance  and  which  required  them  to  de- 
clare they  had  not  given  "aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy.,,  This,  he  complained,  "  rejects  the  Christian 
principle  of  forgiveness  on  terms  of  repentance.  I 
think  it  is  enough  if  the  man  does  no  wrong  here- 
after." 

His  whole  course  was  guided  by  his  feeling  that  the 
government  should  be  animated  by  "no  motive  for 
revenge,  no  purpose  to  punish  for  punishment's  sake," 
and  he  laid  down  as  the  golden  rule  of  statesmanship 
that  "we  should  avoid  planting  too  many  thorns 
in  the  bosom  of  society."  He  stated  only  a  guiding 
principle  of  his  own  life  when  he  said,  "If  any  man 
ceases  to  attack  me,  I  never  remember  the  past 
against  him." 

He  refused  to  lend  himself  to  any  vengeful  spirit 
toward  those  in  the  North  who  had  opposed  his  elec* 

360 


LINCOLN   IN  VICTORY 


tion.  "I  am  in  favor,"  he  said,  "of  short  statutes 
of  limitations  in  politics."  In  his  annual  message  to 
Congress  he  claimed  the  people  who  voted  against 
him,  as  well  as  those  who  voted  for  him  in  the  recent 
election,  as  friends  of  the  Union.  No  candidate,  he 
proudly  pointed  out,  sought  support  on  the  avowal 
that  he  was  for  giving  up  the  Union.  Men  had  dif- 
fered only  as  to  the  method  of  saving  it. 

At  the  approach  of  spring,  in  1865,  the  season  for 
opening  a  new  movement  against  the  army  of  Lee, 
Lincoln  was  most  anxious  to  gain  peace  without 
further  bloodshed.  He  cared  nothing  for  the  mili- 
tary triumph  which  was  certain  to  come.  He 
would  rather  coax  than  drive  the  South  into  sub- 
mission. In  this  generous  spirit  he  went  to  Hamp- 
ton Roads  to  meet  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  the  Con- 
federate Vice-president,  and  other  representatives  of 
the  Richmond  government. 

If  he  had  cared  to  stand  on  his  dignity  as  President, 
he  would  not  have  gone  to  meet  those  subordinates 
of  Jefferson  Davis.  If  he  had  been  moved  by  anv 
pride  of  victory,  he  would  have  spurned  the  reprc 
sentatives  of  a  foe  already  staggering  to  defeat.  He 
thought,  however,  not  of  himself,  but  of  the  lives  of 
the  men  in  blue  and  the  men  in  gray  which  would 
be  sacrificed  on  the  renewal  of  the  struggle.  In  an 
effort  to  save  them,  he  left  the  capital  and  journeyed 

361 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


to  the  meeting  place  aboard  a  boat  in  Hampton 
Roads. 

On  this  mission  he  was  deeply  disappointed,  for 
he  found  that  the  men  he  met  had  been  instructed  to 
insist  on  the  recognition  of  the  Confederate  govern- 
ment. The  President  could  not,  of  course,  admit 
that  there  was  any  other  established  nation  within 
the  United  States. 

One  of  the  Confederates,  in  urging  him  to  recog- 
nize them  in  their  official  capacity,  pointed  out  as  a 
precedent  that  King  Charles  I  of  Great  Britain  had 
deigned  to  treat  with  the  representatives  of  the  Par- 
liamentary army  when  it  was  in  the  field  against  him. 
Lincoln  met  this  argument  with  a  characteristic 
reply,  which  completely  silenced  it.  "I  do  not  pro- 
fess," he  said,  "to  be  posted  in  English  history.  On 
such  matters  I  will  turn  you  over  to  Seward.  All  I 
distinctly  recollect  about  Charles  I  is  that  he  lost 
his  head."  That  was  quite  sufficient  to  dispose  of 
this  historic  example  as  a  safe  one  to  follow. 

The  conference  having  failed,  Lincoln  returned  to 
Washington  and  tried  another  measure  of  stopping 
the  war.  This  was  in  the  form  of  a  message  to  Con- 
gress, recommending  that  the  government  offer  four 
hundred  million  dollars  as  compensation  for  the  los: 
of  the  slaves,  provided  the  Confederates  should  lay 
down  their  arms  before  April  i.     Again  he  was  dis' 

362 


LINCOLN   IN  VICTORY 


appointed.  When  he  submitted  his  plan  to  the  cabi- 
net, its  members  were  unanimously  against  it.  "I 
see  that  you  are  all  opposed  to  me,"  he  said  with  a 
heavy  sigh  as  he  put  the  draft  of  his  message  in  a 
drawer,  "  and  I  will  not  send  it." 

One  other  object  engaged  his  serious  attention  in 
that  period.  He  was  anxious  that  in  the  restored 
Union  there  should  be  no  trace  of  the  institution  of 
slavery,  the  source  of  so  much  discord  in  the  old 
Union.  Slaves  had  been  transformed  into  freedmen 
at  the  advance  of  the  armies  of  the  North,  bearing 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  the  system  of 
bondage  was  in  shreds  throughout  the  South.  He 
earnestly  wished,  however,  to  see  its  abolition  in  the 
border  states  as  well  as  in  the  Confederate  states 
decreed  in  the  Constitution. 

Senator  Sumner  proposed  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment, declaring  that  "everywhere  within  the  limits  of 
the  United  States  and  of  each  state  or  territory 
thereof,  all  persons  are  equal  before  the  law,  so  that 
no  person  can  hold  another  as  a  slave." 

Lincoln,  however,  preferred  this  form,  "Neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  except  as  punish- 
ment of  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been  duly 
convicted,  shall  exist  within  the  United  States,  or 
any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction."  The  first 
part  of  that  sentence  was  copied  word  for  word  from 

363 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


the  Ordinance  of  1787,  which  in  his  boyhood  Lin- 
coln had  read  in  a  borrowed  copy  of  the  statutes  of 
Indiana.  He  liked  it  then,  and  he  desired  now 
to  see  it  embedded  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
land. 

No  battle  won  brought  him  the  joy  which  he  felt 
when  Congress  adopted  the  resolution  proposing  this 
amendment.  The  Legislature  of  Illinois  was  in 
session  at  Springfield  and  before  night  it  had  given 
its  approval.  The  news  was  sent  to  Lincoln  by 
telegraph,  and  he  was  proud  to  see  his  own  state 
take  the  lead  in  ratifying  this  thirteenth  amendment 
of  the  Constitution. 

As  he  drove  to  the  Capitol  to  be  inaugurated  a 
second  time,  a  battalion  of  negro  soldiers  had  an 
honorable  part  in  the  procession.  While  proudly 
escorting  the  emancipator  of  their  race,  they  kept 
martial  step  on  a  pavement  which,  at  his  first  inaugu- 
ration only  four  years  before,  had  been  pressed  by 
the  feet  of  slaves. 

When  Lincoln  again  took  his  place  on  the  steps 
of  the  Capitol  to  renew  his  pledge  to  preserve  the 
Union,  the  group  which  surrounded  him  on  the 
former  occasion  was  gone.  Buchanan  was  in  re- 
tirement and  Breckinridge  was  battling  against  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  Taney  had  sunk  into  his  grave 
beneath  the  weight  of  years.      Douglas  was  dead  in 

364 


LINCOLN   IN   VICTORY 


his  prime.  Baker  had  fallen  on  one  of  the  first  fields 
of  the  conflict. 

Lincoln  himself  was  another  man.  No  longer  the 
untried  stranger,  he  stood  there,  the  trusted  and 
faithful  leader  crowned  with  a  people's  love.  The 
awful  story  of  the  great  war  was  written  in  his  kindly 
face,  where  the  heroic  struggles  and  sacrifices  of  the 
imperiled  nation  could  be  traced  in  the  new  lines  of 
strength  about  his  mouth  and  in  the  added  furrows 
of  sorrow  and  care  about  his  eyes.  Whichever  way 
he  glanced  over  the  audience  hushed  in  expectancy, 
he  saw  sick  and  mutilated  veterans  from  the 
hospitals,  at  once  the  witnesses  and  wrecks  of  the 
strife. 

There  was  less  fear  of  an  attempt  at  assassination 
now  than  at  the  former  inauguration,  and  no  ex- 
traordinary precautions  were  taken.  When  a  well- 
known  but  eccentric  actor,  John  Wilkes  Booth, 
tried  to  press  his  way  toward  the  presidential  stand, 
the  police  pushed  him  back,  and  nothing  more  was 
thought  of  it,  as  an  incident  of  this  kind  is  not 
unusual  on  such  an  occasion. 

A  rain  had  been  falling  and  the  day  was  gloomy. 
As  Lincoln  was  about  to  take  the  oath,  however, 
the  sun  burst  through  the  clouds,  an  omen  which  he 
said  made  his  "heart  jump."  The  people  listened 
to  his  inaugural  address,  awed  by  its  solemn  and 

365 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


stately  beauty,  gazing  upon  him  as  if  he  were  a 
prophet  speaking  by  inspiration :  — 

"Fellow-countrymen:  At  this  second  appear- 
ing to  take  the  oath  of  the  presidential  office,  there 
is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address  than  there 
was  at  the  first.  Then,  a  statement,  somewhat 
in  detail,  of  a  course  to  be  pursued,  seemed  fitting 
and  proper.  Now,  at  the  expiration  of  four  years, 
during  which  public  declarations  have  been  con- 
stantly called  forth  on  every  point  and  phase  of  the 
great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the  attention  and 
engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that  is 
new  could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  our 
arms,  upon  which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is  as 
well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself;  and  it  is, 
I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and  encouraging 
to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the  future,  no  prediction 
in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this  four 
years  ago,  all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed 
to  an  impending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it;  all 
sought  to  avert  it.  While  the  inaugural  address 
was  being  delivered  from  this  place,  devoted  alto- 
gether to  saving  the  Union  without  war,  insurgent 
agents  were  in  the  city  seeking  to  destroy  it  without 
war  —  seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide 
effects    by    negotiation.     Both    parties    deprecated 

366 


LINCOLN  IN  VICTORY 


war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than 
let  the  nation  survive;  and  the  other  would  accept 
war  rather  than  let  it  perish.     And  the  war  came. 

"One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored 
slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union, 
but  localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it.  These 
slaves  constituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest. 
All  knew  that  this  interest  was,  somehow,  the  cause 
of  the  war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend 
this  interest  was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents 
would  rend  the  Union,  even  by  war;  while  the 
government  claimed  no  right  to  do  more  than  to 
restrict  the  territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

"Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude 
or  the  duration  which  it  has  already  attained. 
Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the  conflict 
might  cease  with,  or  even  before,  the  conflict  itself 
should  cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph, 
and  a  result  less  fundamental  and  astounding. 

"Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the  same 
God;  and  each  invokes  His  aid  against  the  other. 
It  may  seem  strange  that  any  men  should  dare  to 
ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  their  bread 
from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces;  but  let  us 
judge  not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayers 
of  both  could  not  be  answered;  that  of  neither 
has  been  answered  fully.     The  Almighty  has  His 

367 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


own  purposes.  'Woe  unto  the  world  because  of 
offences!  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offences  come; 
but  woe  to  that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh.' 

"If  we  shall  suppose  American  slavery  is  one 
of  those  offences  which,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
must  needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued 
through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to  remove, 
and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this 
terrible  war,  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the 
offence  came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure 
from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  believers 
in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  Him  ? 

"Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that 
this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away. 
Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every 
drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by 
another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  'The 
judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  al- 
together/ 

"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in; 
to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds;  to  care  for  him  who 
shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow,  and 

368 


LINCOLN   IN  VICTORY 


his  orphan;  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish 
a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with 
all  nations." 

The  Second  Inaugural  at  once  took  its  place 
beside  the  Gettysburg  Address,  and  thus  he,  who 
in  his  untutored  youth  practised  his  native  gift 
of  oratory  on  the  field  hands  among  whom  he  toiled, 
had  given  to  the  world  the  two  noblest  examples 
of  American  eloquence.  "With  malice  toward  none, 
with  charity  for  all,"  came  forth  from  his  soul 
like  a  chant,  while  his  closing  words  fell  upon  the 
thronged  esplanade  with  the  effect  of  a  benedic- 
tion. When  he  had  finished,  some  freed  their 
emotions  with  cheers,  some  with  tears.  All  went 
away  as  from  an  impressive  religious  ceremony. 

He  had  deliberately  chosen  to  place  on  record  in 
his  inaugural  the  historical  fact  that  the  offence  of 
slavery  came  by  both  the  North  and  the  South, 
and  his  belief  that  God  had  brought  upon  them  a 
terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  each  section  be- 
cause of  that  offence.  At  the  same  time  he  re- 
minded the  North  that  God  had  not  fully  answered 
its  prayers,  and  that  the  Almighty  had  His  own 
purposes.  Lincoln  said  he  knew  it  would  not  flatter 
men  to  be  told  there  was  a  difference  in  purpose 
between  God  and  them.  "It  is  a  truth,"  he  added* 
"which  I  thought  needed  to  be  told,  and  as  what* 
2B  369 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ever  of  humiliation  there  is  in  it  falls  more  directly 
on  myself,  I  thought  others  might  afford  for  me  to 
tell  it." 

When  the  time  came  for  Grant  to  leave  his  winter 
quarters  and  begin  his  campaign,  Lincoln  went 
down  to  the  seat  of  war,  near  Richmond.  He  had 
already  sent  positive  instructions  to  the  General-in- 
chief  not  to  decide  or  even  discuss  any  political 
question  with  Lee.  "Such  questions,"  he  added 
firmly,  in  the  true  spirit  of  a  government  where  the 
civil  is  at  all  times  superior  to  the  military  authority, 
''the  President  holds  in  his  own  hands,  and  will 
submit  them  to  no  military  conferences  or  con- 
ventions." 

Feeling  now  that  the  downfall  of  the  Confederacy 
was  near,  he  determined  to  be  on  the  scene  and  in 
readiness  to  meet  any  emergency  which  might  arise. 
There  he  lived  on  a  boat  in  the  James  River, 
opposite  the  cluster  of  huts  on  the  bank  which  served 
as  Grant's  headquarters.  Admiral  Porter  urged 
him  to  accept  his  bed,  but  he  insisted  upon  not 
disturbing  the  Admiral,  and  sleeping  in  a  small 
stateroom  whose  berth  was  four  inches  shorter 
than  his  body.  "I  slept  well,"  he  said  the  next 
morning,  "but  you  can't  put  a  long  sword  into  a 
thort  scabbard." 

His  host  set  carpenters  to  work  in  the  absence 

370 


LINCOLN   IN  VICTORY 


of  his  distinguished  guest,  to  remedy  the  deficiency. 
The  stateroom  was  quickly  lengthened  and  widened, 
and  the  following  morning  Lincoln  soberly  reported: 
"A  miracle  happened  last  night;  I  shrank  six  inches 
in  length,  and  about  a  foot  sideways."  The  Admiral 
was  positive,  however,  that  if  he  had  "given  him 
two  fence  rails  to  sleep  on,  he  would  not  have  found 
fault." 

Mrs.  Lincoln  and  Tad  were  sent  for,  and  the 
elder  son,  Robert,  came  from  Harvard  to  see  a  few 
days'  soldiering  as  a  member  of  Grant's  staff.  It 
proved  to  be  more  nearly  a  vacation  than  any  the  Presi- 
dent had  been  privileged  to  enjoy  since  the  burdens 
of  the  nation  had  fallen  upon  his  shoulders.  The 
wife  noted  with  pleasure  that  his  old  forebodings 
of  an  evil  fate  seemed  almost  to  have  been  driven 
from  his  bosom  by  his  rising  spirits.  He  sat  about 
the  camp  fire  in  the  evenings,  telling  stories  and 
listening  to  the  officers'  tales,  and  he  devoted  not 
a  little  of  his  attention  to  the  care  of  a  furry  family, 
which  Grant's  cat  had  lately  presented  to  the  General. 

As  he  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  drove  about  the  country 
one  day,  they  came  to  a  remote  little  graveyard, 
on  the  banks  of  the  James.  The  new  green  foliage 
of  the  trees  cast  its  shade  upon  the  tranquil  scene, 
and  the  flowers  of  spring  were  budding  above  the 
nounds.     Lincoln   was    so   attracted    to   the   spot* 

371 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


that  he  and  his  wife  left  their  carriage,  and  walked 
among  the  graves.  The  restfulness  of  the  place 
touched  his  fancy,  and  this  victorious  master  of 
a  million  men  in  arms  turned  wearily  from  the 
vain  pomp  of  power,  and  sighed  for  the  simple 
peace  about  him.  "Mary,"  he  said,  "you  are 
younger  and  will  survive  me.  When  I  am  gone, 
lay  my  body  in  some  quiet  place  like  this." 

Sherman  came  from  the  South,  and  Grant,  Shen 
man,  and  Sheridan  grouped  themselves  about  their 
Commander-in-chief.  "Must  more  blood  be  shed  ?" 
Lincoln  anxiously  inquired.  "Can't  this  last  bloody 
battle  be  avoided  ?"  He  whose  voice  never  faltered 
in  the  dark  days  of  the  war,  shrank  from  the  thought 
of  one  more  volley,  now,  when  it  seemed  so  needless. 
He  was  assured,  however,  that  Lee  would  not  give 
up  until  thoroughly  beaten. 

He  rode  with  Grant  hour  after  hour,  through 
swamps  and  over  corduroy  roads,  with  the  ease  of 
a  seasoned  cavalryman.  The  cheers  of  the  soldiers 
swept  around  him  wherever  he  appeared.  He  sat 
for  hours  in  front  of  the  camp,  tilted  back  in  his 
chair,  and  his  hand  shading  his  eyes,  watching  the 
movements  of  the  men. 

It  was  on  the  last  day  of  March  when  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  and  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia 
once  more  faced  each  other  in  battle  array  and  began 

37* 


LINCOLN   IN   VICTORY 


the  fifth  year  of  their  struggle  for  the  soil  of  the 
Old  Dominion.  Grant's  legions  in  blue  dashed  into 
the  fray  with  the  spirit  of  confidence,  while  there 
were  heavy  hearts  beneath  the  tattered  coats  of  gray 
as  the  mere  remnant  of  Lee's  once  magnificent  army 
wearily  but  loyally  gathered  about  their  devoted 
chief  in  his  last  stand  for  a  cause  that  was  already 
lost. 

Lincoln  waited  behind,  eagerly  watching  each 
courier  as  he  rode  in  from  the  front.  "How  many 
prisoners?"  was  almost  always  his  first  question. 
Every  capture  was  welcomed  by  him  as  a  merciful 
hastening  of  the  end. 

On  the  first  of  April  came  Sheridan's  victory 
at  Five  Forks  and  the  doom  of  Richmond.  Its 
certain  and  immediate  fall  was  decreed  by  that 
battle.  The  Confederate  flag  continued  to  wave 
above  the  Capitol,  and  the  buying  and  selling  of 
men,  women,  and  children  went  on,  even  when  the 
columns  of  freedom  were  advancing  upon  the  city. 
A  man  would  still  bring  one  hundred  dollars  in 
gold. 

Jefferson  Davis  sat  in  his  pew  listening  to  the 
prayer  for  the  President  of  the  Confederate  States, 
the  day  after  the  battle  of  Five  Forks,  when  word 
came  to  him  from  Lee  that  he,  whose  mighty  arm 
had  parried  every  blow  at  Richmond  for  four  long 

373 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


years,  could  defend  it  no  more.  He  must  flee  from 
Grant  along  the  Appomattox  River. 

The  government  of  the  Confederacy  was  hastily 
loaded  upon  trains,  and  Davis  and  his  cabinet  fled 
southward.  Silver  plate  and  family  treasures  were 
taken  from  the  old  homes  of  the  aristocracy  and 
buried  beyond  the  sight  of  the  pillaging  invaders, 
at  whose  approach  the  city  trembled.  Some  masters 
collected  their  slaves  beside  the  railway  and  sought 
safety  in  flight  for  their  property  in  human  beings; 
but  the  institution  of  bondage  perished  while  the 
bondmen  waited  there  in  their  chains. 

The  military  supplies  were  fired  by  the  Con- 
federates as  they  quit  the  town,  which  soon  was 
ablaze.  Liquors  were  emptied  into  the  gutters 
and  scooped  up  in  pans  and  buckets  by  whites  and 
blacks,  who  became  frenzied  from  drink.  The  en- 
tire place  was  speeding  to  a  mad  destruction  when 
in  the  early  hours  of  Monday  morning  the  vanguard 
of  the  Union  forces,  which  had  cautiously  entered 
the  outer  intrenchments  only  to  find  them  deserted, 
whirled  into   Richmond. 

On  their  heels  came  the  negro  troopers  of  a 
cavalry  regiment,  their  waving  swords  a  sign  of 
deliverance  for  the  people  of  their  race  who  ran 
beside  the  proud  horsemen  shouting  for  joy.  The 
flag  of  the  nation  was  hoisted  again  upon  the  Capitof 

374' 


LINCOLN   IN   VICTORY 


of  Virginia,  and  the  Union  commander  established 
his  headquarters  in  the  house  of  the  fugitive  Presi- 
dent of  the  Confederacy. 

Richmond  had  fallen,  and  Richmond  was  saved. 
For  the  army  of  the  Union  did  not  come  to  loot 
or  triumph.  On  the  contrary,  it  extinguished  the 
roaring  flames  that  were  devouring  the  city,  fed  the 
hungry  of  the  long-besieged  and  starving  capital, 
and  repressed  the  drunken  rioters  and  robbers  and 
loosened  convicts  who  had  struck  terror  to  every 
home. 

"I  want  to  see  Richmond,"  Lincoln  said,  with 
a  curiosity  as  simple  as  a  boy's,  when  he  heard  of 
the  capture  of  the  stronghold  against  which  he  had 
hurled  his  soldiers  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands. 
He  went  by  the  river  from  Grant's  headquarters 
on  Tuesday  and  landed  from  a  twelve-oared  barge 
near  Libby  Prison.  There  was  no  military  escort 
to  meet  him,  and  not  even  a  vehicle  of  any  kind. 
Taking  his  boy  Tad  by  the  hand,  he  walked  through 
the  streets  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  guarded  only  by 
ten  sailors. 

The  negroes  were  in  ecstasy  as  they  beheld  their 
emancipator.  They  touched  the  skirt  of  his  coat 
in  awe,  or  prostrated  themselves  at  his  feet.  He 
was  annoyed  and  even  saddened  to  have  any  human 
being  humble   himself  before   him.     "Don't   kneel 

375 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


to  me;  that  is  not  right,"  he  said,  and  a  leader 
among  them  commanded  in  a  hoarse  whisper,  "Sh  — 
sh  —  be  still;  heah  our  Saviour  speak."  Lincoln 
continued:  "You  must  kneel  to  God  only.  I  am 
but  God's  humble  instrument;  but  you  may  rest 
assured  that  as  long  as  I  live  no  one  shall  put  a 
shackle  on  your  limbs." 

He  told  them  they  were  as  free  as  he  was,  and 
even  freer,  for  they  had  less  care  and  worry.  "  God 
bless  you  and  let  me  pass  on,"  he  said  to  them  as 
he  moved  forward  with  difficulty  through  the  black 
mass.  Again,  in  the  strange  progress  of  this  modest 
conqueror  an  old  slave  lifted  his  hat,  and  the  Presi- 
dent returned  the  salutation  by  lifting  his,  whereat 
the  crowd  of  negroes  who  followed  him  gaped  in 
Wonder  to  see  a  white  man  uncover  to  a  black. 

Lincoln  went  on  until  he  came  to  the  "White 
House  of  the  Confederacy,"  which  Davis  had  left 
only  thirty-six  hours  before.  The  day  was  hot  and 
the  perspiration  ran  down  his  face  as  he  entered 
the  old  mansion.  Walking  into  the  office,  he  seated 
himself  at  a  desk.  "This  must  have  been  President 
Davis's  chair,"  he  said,  as  his  hands  rested  on  its 
arms,  and  he  leaned  against  its  comfortable  back. 

There  he  sat  in  revery,  gazing  into  space,  while  not 
unlikely  his  sympathies  were  touched  by  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  exiled  master  of  the  house.     "  He  ought 

376 


LINCOLN  IN  VICTORY 


to  be  hanged,"  some  one  said  in  his  passion  against 
Davis.  "Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  was 
Lincoln's  only  reply. 

He  returned  to  the  army  headquarters  on  the  river 
at  night,  but  came  again  to  Richmond  on  Wednesday. 
He  sought  out  the  home  of  General  Pickett,  the  hero 
of  the  memorable  charge  at  Gettysburg,  who  valiantly 
but  vainly  made  the  last  defence  of  Richmond  at  Five 
Forks.  Lincoln  forgot  that  Pickett  was  an  enemy  in 
the  field.  He  remembered  only  his  old  friendship 
for  him,  when  the  famous  General  was  a  boy  on  a 
visit  to  Illinois,  and  he  himself  had  obtained  for 
him  his  appointment  as  a  cadet  at  West  Point.  He 
found  the  house  and  knocked  at  the  door. 

"Is  this  where  George  Pickett  lives  ?"  he  asked  the 
woman  who  came  with  a  baby  in  her  arms  to  answer 
his  summons.  She  said  it  was  and  that  she  was 
Mrs.  Pickett.  Then  he  told  her  who  he  was,  pro- 
testing he  came  not  as  "the  President,"  the  title  which 
she  had  exclaimed  in  her  astonishment,  but  simply  as 
"Abraham  Lincoln,  George's  old  friend."  The  baby 
stretched  forth  his  little  hands,  and  the  conqueror 
took  the  conquered  in  his  arms.  Thus  the  union 
was  restored  beside  one  hearthstone  at  least. 

Lincoln  tarried  at  Grant's  headquarters  until  the 
morning  of  the  day  on  which  Lee  surrendered  his 
famished  army.     "  Get  them  to  ploughing  and  gather- 

377 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


ing  in  their  own  little  crops/'  he  said  as  he  discussed 
the  terms  that  should  be  offered  to  the  vanquished, 
"and  eating  pop-corn  at  their  own  firesides,  and  you 
can't  get  them  to  shoulder  a  musket  again  for  half  a 
century." 

It  was  Sunday.  The  end  of  the  great  Civil  War 
was  at  hand,  "the  mightiest  struggle  and  the  most 
glorious  victory  as  yet  recorded  in  human  annals/' 
according  to  the  judgment  of  Mommsen,  the  eminent 
German  historian.  The  North  was  still  ringing  with 
the  echoes  of  the  people's  rejoicing  over  the  fall  of 
Richmond,  and  to-morrow  all  the  bells  would  peal 
forth  the  glad  tidings  from  Appomattox.  The  new 
birth  of  freedom,  to  which  Lincoln  had  dedicated  the 
nation  among  the  dead  at  Gettysburg,  he  had  seen 
with  his  own  eyes,  and  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people,  was  saved  from  wreck. 

As  he  sailed  up  the  Potomac,  he  read  aloud  these 
words  from  Macbeth :  — 

"Duncan  is  in  his  grave; 
After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well. 
Treason  has  done  its  worst;  nor  steel,  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further." 

A  second  time  he  read  this  passage  from  Shake- 
speare, seemingly  fascinated  by  the  words.  The 
boat  approached   Washington,   the  white   dome  of 

378 


LINCOLN  IN  VICTORY 


the  Capitol  swimming  in  the  sky.     As  Mrs.  Lincoln 

looked  upon  their  journey's  end,  an  expression  of 

dread  came  into  her  face. 

"That  city,"  she  said,  "is  filled  with  our  enemies." 
"Enemies!"    Lincoln  replied,  as  if  the  word  had 

no  place  in  the  new  era  of  peace,  "we  must  never 

speak  of  that." 


379 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


From 
THE  HARVARD  COMMEMORATION  ODE 

By  James  Russell  Lowell 
1865 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 

And  cannot  make  a  man 

Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 

Repeating  us  by  rote: 
For  him  her  Old  World  mould  aside  she  threw, 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 

With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 

But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity ! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust; 

They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 

And  supple-tempered  will 
That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring  again  and  thrust 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  mornward  still, 

Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 

Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface; 

3&5 


LOWELL'S    ODE 


Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 

And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to  face. 
***** 

Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 
But  at  last  silence  comes; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American* 


381 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 

THE    DEATH    OF    LINCOLN 


To  win  the  hearts  of  his  foes,  his  chief  care  in  his  closing  days.  — ■ 
No  exulting  at  the  White  House  over  the  conquered  South.  — 
Lincoln's  last  speech,  April  1 1,  1865.  —  His  anxiety  for  a  speedy 
restoration  of  the  Union.  —  His  strange  dream  the  night  before 
his  assassination.  —  His  last  cabinet  meeting,  held  on  the  fatal 
Friday.  —  Peace  and  good-will  his  watchwords.- — "We  must 
extinguish  our  resentments."  —  Fondly  planning  the  future 
with  his  wife.  —  Her  unhappy  premonition.  —  Their  theater 
party  with  Major  Rathbone  and  the  daughter  of  Senator  Harris 
of  New  York  as  their  guests.  —  Lincoln  assassinated  in  a  box 
at  Ford's  Theater,  April  14,  by  John  Wilkes  Booth.  —  Escape 
of  the  assassin.  —  Secretary  Seward  stabbed  by  Lewis  Powell, 
alias  Payne,  one  of  Booth's  accomplices.  —  Death  of  Lincoln, 
April  15. 

Lincoln's  chief  care  on  returning  to  his  post  of 
duty  seemed  to  be  to  win  the  hearts  of  his  foes. 

He  longed  to  see  the  great  armies  of  both  sides  dis- 
perse and  the  soldiers  return  to  the  ways  of  peace. 
The  North  was  wild  with  joy  over  the  ending  of  the 
war.  Probably  no  other  event  in  history  ever  was 
so  universally  celebrated  among  any  people.  The 
multitude  felt  it  was  their  victory,  won  by  themselves 
and  for  themselves. 

Yet  if  Lincoln  could  have  had  his  choice,  not  a 
salute  would  have  been  fired  or  a  bell  rung  in  triumph 

382 


THE   DEATH    OF   LINCOLN 


over  his  defeated  countrymen  in  the  South.  He 
would  have  had  the  nation  at  large  emulate  the  spirit 
of  Grant  at  Appomattox  when  he  ordered  the  artil- 
lery to  stop  firing  in  honor  of  Lee's  surrender. 

At  a  serenade  the  next  day,  Lincoln  called  on  the 
band  to  play  "Dixie,"  and,  as  its  stirring  strains 
echoed  through  the  White  House,  his  foot  kept  time 
to  the  battle  song  of  the  Confederacy.  A  great 
crowd  coming  to  rejoice  with  him  on  the  night  of 
the  second  day  after  the  surrender,  he  appeared  at  a 
window  and  read  his  speech  while  a  man  at  his  elbow 
held  a  lamp  above  his  manuscript. 

He  spoke  to  the  humbled  vanquished  rather  than 
to  the  exultant  victors,  and  in  a  tone  of  the  utmost 
soberness.  "It  may  be  my  duty,"  he  said  in  con- 
cluding, "to  make  some  new  announcement  to  the 
people  of  the  South.  I  am  considering,  and  shall 
not  fail  to  act  when  satisfied  that  action  will  be 
proper." 

April  14  fell  on  Good  Friday.  It  is  doubtful, 
however,  if  the  religious  significance  of  the  day  oc- 
curred to  Lincoln's  mind,  for  he  always  lived  among 
a  people  who  were  not  used  to  observing  it  as  the 
anniversary  of  the  crucifixion  of  the  Saviour. 

By  his  own  selection  it  was  the  occasion  for  raising 
above  the  ruins  of  Fort  Sumter  the  flag  which  had 
been   lowered   there  four  years   before.     Anderson, 

&3 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


its  defender  then,  was  the  central  figure  in  the  cere- 
mony, and  the  orator  of  the  day  eloquently  thanked 
God  that  Lincoln  had  been  spared  to  behold  the 
glorious  fulfilment  of  his  labors  for  the  Union. 

An  unwonted  ease  and  happiness  seemed  to  rest 
upon  the  President.  Robert  returned  from  the  army 
and  for  an  hour  his  father  listened  to  the  young  man's 
account  of  what  he  had  seen  and  done. 

General  Grant,  the  captor  of  three  armies,  came, 
wearing  modestly  his  latest  and  noblest  honors. 
There  was  still  a  Confederate  army  in  the  field  in 
North  Carolina,  under  Johnston,  and  Grant  was 
worried  because  no  report  of  its  capture  had  been 
received  from  Sherman.  Lincoln  was  sure  that  good 
news  would  soon  come,  for  he  had  had  a  dream  the 
night  before,  the  same  dream  which  had  been  the 
forerunner  of  other  great  events.  He  dreamed  he  was 
in  a  strange  ship,  moving  rapidly  toward  a  dark  and 
indefinite  shore.  This  was  the  vision  which  he  had 
seen  in  his  sleep  before  the  battles  of  Antietam, 
Murfreesboro,  Gettysburg,  and  Vicksburg,  and  he 
was  confident  it  meant  now  that  Sherman  had  de- 
feated, or  was  about  to  defeat,  Johnston.  What  else 
could  it  mean  ?  He  knew  of  no  other  important 
event  that  was  pending. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  joined  in  welcoming  the  victorious 
General-in-chief,  and,  as  a  return  for  the  courtesies 

384 


THE   DEATH   OF   LINCOLN 


she  had  lately  received  at  his  headquarters,  invited 
him  and  Mrs.  Grant  to  go  to  the  theater  in  the  even- 
ing. The  General  promised  to  consider  the  invi- 
tation, and  Mrs.  Lincoln  sent  a  messenger  to  Ford's 
Theater  with  a  request  for  a  box. 

Within  an  hour,  John  Wilkes  Booth  called  at  the 
theater  for  his  mail,  which  he  was  accustomed  to  re 
ceive  there,  and  a  man  in  the  office  spoke  to  him  of 
the  distinguished  party  that  was  coming  to  the  even- 
ing performance.  Booth's  was  a  familiar  and  dra- 
matic figure  in  the  streets  of  Washington.  He  was 
a  handsome  young  man  of  twenty-eight,  who  was 
generally  regarded  as  a  person  of  dark  but  harmless 
moods.  As  an  actor,  his  gifts  were  by  no  means 
worthy  of  his  name,  which  had  been  made  famous 
by  the  genius  of  his  brother  Edwin  and  his  father, 
Junius  Brutus. 

Throughout  the  war  he  vaunted  his  loyalty  to  the 
South,  and  his  hostility  to  the  Union  preyed  upon  his 
never  well-balanced  mind.  It  is  apparent  that  the 
news  he  heard  at  the  theater  instantly  determined 
him  to  carry  out  a  desperate  project  which  had  long 
been  in  his  thoughts,  and  he  called  into  council  a 
group  of  mad  adventurers. 

It  was  cabinet  day  at  the  White  House.      When 
Lincoln  took  his  seat  at  the  head  of  the  table,  Stan 
ton  had  not  come.     While  waiting  for  the  Secretary 
20  385 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


of  War,  the  President  told  again  the  story  of  his 
dream  voyage  in  a  phantom  ship  toward  an  unseen 
shore. 

The  uppermost  topic  of  discussion  at  the  meet- 
ing was  the  policy  to  be  pursued  toward  the  states 
of  the  South,  as  well  as  toward  Jefferson  Davis 
and  various  other  principals  in  the  war  against  the 
Union.  Lincoln  said  he  regarded  it  as  providential 
that  Congress  was  not  in  session  to  interfere  in  the 
matter  of  reconstruction.  He  believed  that  by  wise 
and  discreet  action  the  administration  could  set 
the  states  upon  their  feet,  secure  order,  and  reestab- 
lish the  Union  before  the  meeting  of  Congress  in 
December. 

As  to  the  treatment  of  the  Confederate  leaders,  he 
said  with  much  feeling  that  no  one  need  expect  he 
would  take  any  part  in  hanging  these  men,  even  the 
worst  of  them.  "  Frighten  them  out  of  the  country," 
he  cried,  in  a  high-pitched  voice.  "Open  the  gates! 
Let  down  the  bars!  Scare  them  off!"  and  he 
threw  up  his  arms  as  if  to  drive  a  herd  of  sheep. 
"Enough  lives  have  been  sacrificed,"  he  continued. 
"We  must  extinguish  our  resentments,  if  we  expect 
harmony  and  union." 

He  expressed  his  dislike  of  the  disposition  of  some 
persons  to  hector  and  dictate  to  the  people  of  the 
South.     "All  must  begin  to  act  in  the  interest  of 

386 


THE   DEATH   OF   LINCOLN 


peace."  Such  was  his  parting  injunction  to  the  cabi- 
net, and  the  members  left  him  with  this  sentiment 
of  a  generous  statesmanship  ringing  in  their  ears. 

He  was  in  high  spirits,  but  Stanton  was  troubled 
at  the  thought  of  both  the  President  and  the  General- 
in-chief  exposing  themselves  in  a  theater  box  at  a 
time  of  intense  excitement  when  there  were  men 
abroad  who  had  been  made  desperate  by  defeat. 
Lincoln,  however,  was  an  avowed  fatalist,  believing, 
as  he  often  said,  that  what  is  to  be  will  be,  regard- 
less of  anything  we  may  do.  Thus  it  will  be  remem- 
bered he  argued  with  Herndon  in  the  old  law  office, 
that  Caesar  had  been  appointed  to  die  by  Brutus's 
hand,  even  as  Brutus  had  been  foreordained  to 
slay  Caesar. 

Moreover,  assassination  never  had  stained  the 
pages  of  American  history.  Lincoln  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  the  many  threatening  messages  which  came  to 
him,  and  kept  only  a  few  of  them,  which  he  labeled 
"Assassination  Letters"  and  laid  away  in  his  desk. 
"If  I  am  killed,  I  can  die  but  once,"  he  protested  on 
one  occasion;  "but  to  live  in  constant  dread  of  it,  is 
to  die  over  and  over  again." 

Stanton  repeated  his  warning  to  Grant.  Whether 
the  General  was  influenced  by  this  is  not  known,  but 
at  any  rate  he  withdrew  his  acceptance  of  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln's invitation  and  with  his  wife  left  the  city  in  the 

387 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


early  evening  to  visit  their  daughter,  who  was  at 
school  in  New  Jersey. 

The  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  went  for  a  drive 
in  the  afternoon,  he  expressing  a  wish  that  they 
should  go  alone.  Tender  recollections  came  back 
to  him,  and  he  spoke  of  their  early  struggle  to* 
gether,  their  home  in  Springfield,  and  their  friends. 
"We  have  laid  by  some  money/'  he  continued, 
"  and  during  this  term  we  will  try  to  save  up  more. 
Then  we  will  go  back  to  Illinois."  He  meant,  when 
he  returned,  to  go  on  practising  law.  He  hoped 
first,  however,  they  would  see  a  little  of  the  old 
world  and  visit  California. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  so  unused  to  finding  him  care 
free,  that  her  superstition  was  aroused  by  his  light- 
headedness. She  told  herself  it  was  unreal,  and 
could  not  last.  "I  have  seen  you  thus  only  once 
before,"  she  reminded  him;  "it  was  just  before  our 
dear  Willie  died." 

When  the  evening  paper  came  out,  it  carried  this 
announcement  of  the  theater  management:  "Lieu- 
tenant-general Grant,  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln 
and  ladies,  will  occupy  the  state  box  at  Ford's 
Theater  to-night,  to  witness  Miss  Laura  Keene's 
company  in  Tom  Taylor's  '  American  Cousin.' ,; 

Already  Booth's  conspiracy  was  complete,  and  his 
evil  secret,  which  it  might  be  supposed  he  could  find 

388 


THE   DEATH    OF   LINCOLN 


no  one  to  keep,  was  in  the  breasts  of  his  trusted 
followers. 

Soon  after  Lincoln  returned  from  his  drive,  an  offi- 
cial of  the  War  Department  called  to  report  that  Jacob 
Thompson,  formerly  Secretary  of  the  Interior  of  the 
United  States,  and  during  the  war  the  leader  of  the 
group  of  Confederates  who  had  made  Canada  their 
headquarters  in  their  operations  against  the  Union, 
was  about  to  escape  from  Portland,  Maine,  by  a 
steamer  sailing  for  Europe.  Stanton  wished  to  arrest 
Thompson.  "Well,"  the  President  said  to  his  caller, 
who  had  informed  him  of  Stanton's  wishes,"  I  rather 
guess  not.  When  you  have  an  elephant  on  your 
hands,  and  he  wants  to  run  away,  better  let  him  run." 

Lincoln  was  detained  by  visitors  in  the  evening, 
and  was  late  in  starting  for  the  theater.  On  the  way, 
he  and  his  wife  were  joined  by  a  happy  young 
couple,  lately  betrothed,  and  whom  they  had  invited 
in  place  of  the  Grants.  It  was  nine  o'clock  when 
they  entered  their  box  to  the  orchestral  strains  of 
"Hail  to  the  Chief,"  and  amid  the  hearty  cheering 
of  a  crowded  house.  Lincoln  seated  himself  in  a 
rocking  chair,  near  the  railing,  and  the  members  of 
his  party  settled  themselves  to  enjoy  the  comedy, 
which  later  gained  celebrity  under  the  name  of 
"Lord  Dundreary,"  the  elder  Sothern  making  a 
notable  success  of  the  title  role 

389 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Meanwhile  Booth,  impatiently  awaiting  the  time 
which  he  had  chosen  for  his  appearance  at  the 
theater,  paced  up  and  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue. 
As  the  hour  drew  near,  he  went  to  a  bar  and  min- 
istered to  his  madness  by  taking  a  large  drink  of 
brandy.  Then  he  sauntered  into  the  theater,  and  at 
ten  o'clock  was  seen  strolling  along  the  wall  aisle  of 
the  balcony  toward  the  state  box.  Within,  sat  the 
Commander-in-chief  of  mighty  armies,  without  a 
soldier  to  guard  him. 

Booth,  stepping  into  the  little  anteroom  of  the 
box,  barred  the  door  behind  him  with  a  piece  of  wood, 
which  one  of  his  dupes,  an  employee  of  the  theater, 
had  placed  there  for  the  purpose.  Peeping  through 
a  hole  which  this  fellow  had  bored  for  him,  he  looked 
upon  his  illustrious  prey,  and  noted  his  position. 
Thus  prepared,  he  noiselessly  opened  the  door. 

The  audience  was  roaring  with  laughter  over  the 
farcical  lines  of  the  one  actor  on  the  stage  at  the 
moment.  A  little  while  before,  Lincoln  had  been 
speaking  with  his  wife,  his  thoughts  still  fondly  dwell- 
ing on  plans  for  their  future,  and  he  had  closed  his 
remarks  by  saying,  "There  is  no  place  I  should  like 
so  much  to  see  as  Jerusalem." 

There  he  sat,  "with  malice  toward  none,  with 
charity  for  all,"  without  a  personal  enemy  in  the 
wovld.     Could  Booth  have    looked    into    his    coun- 

39o 


THE   DEATH    OF   LINCOLN 


tenance,  its  simple  benignity  might  have  appealed  to 
his  better  nature,  as  the  frenzied  intruder  paused  for 
a  second  on  the  verge  of  his  awful  deed.  But  stealing 
upon  him  from  behind,  he  fired  his  cowardly  shot. 

Lincoln  rose  from  his  chair  under  the  impulse  of 
the  shock,  and  then  sank  back,  his  head  drooping  and 
his  eyes  closed,  only  to  open  again  upon  the  unseen 
shore  of  that  mysterious  bourne,  toward  which  he  had 
sailed  in  his  dream-ship  the  night  before.  By  a 
great  mercy,  he  neither  saw  the  assassin  nor  felt 
the  wound. 

The  young  man  in  the  party  sprang  at  the  murderer, 
who  let  his  pistol  fall  as  he  plunged  a  knife  in  the 
arm  outstretched  to  restrain  him.  A  realization  of 
the  terrible  scene  slowly  dawned  upon  the  bewildered 
mind  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  she  screamed.  The 
wife's  cry  aroused  the  stupefied  audience  to  the  great 
tragedy  which  had  supplanted  the  comedy  they  were 
watching.  They  saw  the  handsome  face  of  Booth, 
his  eyes  lustrous  with  passion,  as  he  leaned  out  of  the 
box,  blade  in  hand,  making  ready  to  leap  upon  the 
>tage. 

The  distance  was  only  nine  feet,  and  Booth  had 
often  made  a  jump  of  twelve  feet  from  a  rock  while 
playing  in  "  Macbeth/'  In  his  flying  descent  now, 
however,  his  spur  caught  in  an  American  flag,  with 
which  the   front  of  the  President's  box  had   been 

39i 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


draped,  and  he  fell  upon  the  stage,  dragging  down 
the  flag  in  his  fall.  His  leg  was  broken,  but  with 
the  strength  of  a  crazed  man,  he  quickly  rose  and 
drew  his  knife  through  the  air,  shouting,  "Sic  semper 
tyrannis,"  the  motto  on  the  seal  of  Virginia. 

To  his  distracted  mind  it  was  all  a  play,  and  he 
but  a  player.  His  lines  spoken,  his  part  finished,  he 
strode  from  the  stage.  At  the  stage  door  stood  a 
boy  holding  a  horse,  hired  for  the  occasion,  and 
crouching  on  its  back,  Booth  dashed  away  in  the  light 
of  the  moon,  the  animal's  hoof  beats  clattering  noisily 
in  the  stillness  of  the  night,  and  the  rider  squirming 
in  pain  from  the  broken  bone  which  was  tearing 
through  the  flesh  of  his  leg. 

Men  rushed  to  Lincoln's  box,  to  find  its  door 
secured  against  their  entrance.  An  army  surgeon  in 
the  audience,  climbing  up  on  another  man's  back, 
made  his  way  into  the  front  of  the  box.  The  door 
was  unbarred,  and  one  or  two  other  doctors  came. 

It  was  seen  at  once  that  the  bullet  had  entered  the 
back  of  the  head  and  crashed  into  the  brain.  Lin- 
coln must  die,  meeting  the  fate  which  had  brooded 
over  him  from  youth,  and  which  he  had  long  fore- 
boded. It  seems  as  if  it  were  written  in  the  book  of 
life,  that  this  man  of  trials  and  disappointments 
should  not  live  to  enjoy  the  success  which  he  had 
achieved,  or  the  applause  of  the  world  which   he 

392 


THE   DEATH   OF   LINCOLN 


had  won.  The  irony  of  it  was  that  he,  the  faithful 
son  and  loving  father  of  the  people,  should  be  struck 
down  as  a  tyrant. 

He  was  lifted  from  the  chair  into  which  he  had 
sunk.  With  a  doctor  holding  his  head,  and  others 
supporting  the  stricken  body  and  legs,  he  was  borne 
from  the  theater,  men  going  ahead  and  tearing  the 
seats  from  the  floor  to  make  a  passageway.  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  only  less  helpless  than  her  husband,  was  led 
after  him,  and  as  the  little  procession  left  the  audi- 
torium, the  curtain  was  lowered  forever  upon  the 
stage  of  Ford's  Theater. 

It  was  felt  the  President  could  not  survive  a  ride 
over  the  cobblestones  to  the  White  House  in  his 
waiting  carriage,  and  those  who  were  bearing  him 
paused  on  the  sidewalk,  not  knowing  which  way  to 
turn.  A  lodger  in  the  house  of  a  tailor,  opposite  the 
theater,  came  to  the  door  to  learn  the  cause  of  the 
commotion  on  the  street,  and  he  told  them  to  bring 
the  wounded  man  to  his  room.  Lincoln  was  carried 
into  the  house,  his  blood  dripping  on  the  steps. 
There  he  was  taken  into  a  little  room,  where  he  was 
laid  diagonally  upon  the  bed,  which  was  shorter 
than  his  body. 

In  the  meantime  the  excited  crowd  from  the  theater 
poured  into  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  spreading  as  they 
went  the  direful  news  of  what  they  had  seen.     Soon 

393 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


they  were  met  by  others,  equally  excited,  who  said 
that  Seward  had  been  assassinated  in  his  home. 

Stanton,  hearing  first  of  this  latter  crime,  was  has- 
tening to  the  house  of  the  Secretary  of  State  when 
he  was  astounded  by  the  report  of  the  murderous 
attack  on  the  President.  Naturally  fearing  there  was 
a  plot  afoot  to  paralyze  the  government,  he  closed  the 
liquor  saloons,  threw  a  heavy  guard  around  the  house 
where  the  President  lay,  placed  the  city  under  martial 
control,  and  took  general  command. 

The  bitter  suspicion  started  in  his  mind  and  in  the 
public  mind  generally,  that  some  of  the  Confederate 
leaders,  blinded  by  the  misfortunes  of  war,  had  con- 
spired with  the  assassins.  In  this  way  Booth's  horrid 
act  at  once  wrought  a  grievous  injury  to  the  very 
people  who,  in  his  wild  mania,  he  fancied  he  was 
serving.  The  true  friend  of  the  disarmed  and  pros- 
trate South  was  struck  down,  while  his  heart  throbbed 
with  generosity  toward  the  conquered  states,  and  in 
a  flash  Lincoln's  policy  of  peace  and  good-will  was 
dashed  to  the  earth. 

All  through  the  hopeless  night,  death  battled  with 
the  giant  strength  of  Lincoln.  He  moaned  con- 
tinually, but  happily  he  was  unconscious  of  the  long 
struggle  which  was  so  painful  for  others  to  watch. 
Statesmen  and  generals  were  about  him,  not  ashamed 
of  their    tears,   while    Mrs.    Lincoln   grieved    in    a 

394 


THE    DEATH    OF   LINCOLN 


near-by  room.  The  night  was  as  dismal  without  as 
within,  for  a  raw  and  drizzling  rain  had  set  in  and 
continued  to  fall  throughout  the  following  day. 

Hour  by  hour  the  pulse  of  the  dying  man  grew 
weaker.  At  twenty-two  minutes  after  seven  in  the 
morning  of  Saturday,  April  15,  it  ceased  to  beat,  and 
turning  from  the  mortal  Lincoln,  Stanton  hoarsely 
whispered,  "Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages." 


395 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


O  CAPTAIN!   MY  CAPTAIN  I 

By  Walt  Whitman 
1865 

O  Captain!  my  Captain!  our  fearful  trip  is  done, 
The  ship  has  weather'd  every  rack,  the  prize  we  sought  is  won, 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting, 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring; 
But  O  heart !  heart !  heart ! 
O  the  bleeding  drops  of  red, 

Where  on  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen  cold  and  dead. 

O  Captain!  my  Captain!  rise  up  and  hear  the  bells; 

Rise  up  —  for  you  the  flag  is  flung  —  for  you  the  bugle  trills, 

For  you  bouquets  and   ribbon'd  wreaths  —  for  you   the   shores 

a-crowding, 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager  faces  turning; 
Here  Captain !  dear  father ! 
This  arm  beneath  your  head ! 

It  is  some  dream  that  on  the  deck, 
You've  fallen  cold  and  dead. 

My  Captain  does  not  answer,  his  lips  are  pale  and  still, 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor  will, 
The  ship  is  anchor'd  safe  and  sound,  its  voyage  closed  and  donei 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with  object  won; 
Exult  O  shores,  and  ring  O  bells ! 
But  I  with  mournful  tread, 
Walk  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen  cold  and  dead. 

30 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

SORROW   OF   THE    WORLD 


The  day  that  Lincoln  died  unique  in  history.  —  National  joy 
turned  to  universal  grief.  —  "God  reigns  and  the  government 
at  Washington  still  lives."  —  A  revolution  in  the  policies  of  the 
nation  wrought  in  a  day.  —  Unseemly  rejoicing  by  the  radicals. 
—  Lincoln's  plans  of  reconciliation  supplanted  by  a  bitter 
suspicion  of  the  South.  —  Jefferson  Davis  arraigned  as  an  ac- 
complice in  the  assassination.  —  The  punishment  of  Booth  and 
his  plotters.  —  The  awful  fate  which  pursued  the  President's 
companions  in  the  theater  box.  —  The  widow's  mind  broken 
by  the  blow.  —  Lincoln's  estate.  —  The  funeral  day,  April  19, 
1865,  observed  all  over  the  country.  — The  body  lying  in  state 
at  the  Capitol.  —  The  sixteen-hundred-mile  journey  to  Spring- 
field began  April  21. — A  million  Americans  looked  upon  the 
face  of  their  dead  chieftain.  —  The  arrival  of  the  remains  in 
Springfield,  May  3.  —  The  burial  at  Oak  Ridge,  May  4. 

The  Saturday  that  Lincoln  died  stands  alone  in 
history.  There  never  was  another  day  like  it.  A 
victorious  people  awoke  to  continue  their  week  of 
rejoicing.  All  the  North  was  gayly  decked.  In  an 
hour  the  land  was  engulfed  by  a  tidal  wave  of  grief 
and  rage. 

It  was  no  mere  show,  no  ceremonial  tribute  of 
a  nation  to  its  chief.  On  the  contrary,  millions 
mourned  the  loss,  not  of  an  official  but  of  a  friend. 
Men  met  in  the  streets,  in  the  stores  and  in  the  shops, 

397 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


with  tears  in  their  eyes,  and  their  throats  aching  with 
emotion.  Sorrow  filled  the  homes.  Services  in  the 
churches  on  Easter  Sunday  were  robbed  of  their 
usual  joyousness. 

No  other  death  ever  touched  so  many  hearts. 
People  rebelled  against  the  cruelty  of  their  bereave^ 
ment,  and  a  bitter  spirit  of  revenge  toward  the  South 
burned  in  their  breasts.  Stanton  feared  that  wild 
rumors  might  cause  panic  and  disorder  in  New  York, 
and  while  Lincoln  was  dying  he  arranged  for  a  public 
meeting  to  be  held  in  Wall  Street  in  the  early  morning. 
Garfield,  then  a  member  of  Congress,  was  among 
those  sent  to  calm  the  public  of  the  metropolis,  and, 
standing  by  the  statue  of  Washington  on  the  steps  of 
the  Sub-treasury,  he  thrilled  the  thousands  who 
crowded  the  street  with  the  eloquent  assurance  that 
"  God  reigns  and  the  government  at  Washington  still 
lives.,, 

Nevertheless,  a  revolution  really  had  taken  place. 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  in  his  speech  on  Lincoln  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons,  declared  that  "assassi- 
nation never  has  changed  the  history  of  the  world." 
It  is  true,  however,  that  in  the  flash  of  Booth's  pistol 
shot,  the  policies  of  the  government  had  been  com- 
pletely reversed.  The  hands  of  the  radicals,  which 
Lincoln  had  restrained  for  four  years,  were  free  at 
last.     The  reign  of  the  bayonet  and  the  carpet-bagger, 

398 


SORROW   OF   THE   WORLD 


the  ku-klux,  the  shot-gun,  and  the  "bloody  shirt" 
was  inaugurated  in  the  South,  and  the  country 
entered  upon  a  decade  of  angry  turmoil. 

Stanton  left  the  death  chamber  to  order  the  arrest 
of  Jacob  Thompson,  the  Confederate  emissary,  with 
whom  the  President  had  refused  to  interfere  the  day 
before.  Extreme  men  in  high  places  hailed  the  ac- 
cession of  Vice-president  Johnson  to  the  Presidency 
as  "a  godsend  to  the  country."  The  new  President 
delighted  them  by  declaring  "treason  must  be  made 
infamous,  and  traitors  must  be  punished."  Senator 
Wade  of  Ohio,  the  President  of  the  Senate,  exclaimed, 
"  By  the  gods,  there  will  be  no  trouble  now  in  running 
the  government." 

A  caucus  of  Republican  senators  was  held  within  a 
few  hours  of  Lincoln's  death,  and  plans  were  laid 
for  overturning  his  projects  for  the  reconstruction 
of  the  South.  Grant  himself  was  swept  into  the 
current  of  retaliation.  "Extreme  rigor  will  have 
to  be  observed,"  he  said  in  a  severe  military  de- 
spatch, "whilst  assassination  remains  the  order  of 
the  day  with  the  rebels." 

Stanton  proclaimed  an  offer  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  for  the  arrest  of  Jefferson  Davis  as 
an  accomplice  in  the  murder  of  Lincoln,  and  for  two 
years  the  President  of  the  fallen  Confederacy  was 
held  in  prison  on  that  and  other  charges  without  trial. 

399 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Happily  history  acquits  him  and  all  responsible  men 
of  any  knowledge  of  or  sympathy  with  the  assassina- 
tion. 

Booth  was  hunted  down  and  shot,  while  four  per- 
sons convicted  of  conspiring  with  him,  including  a 
woman,  Mrs.  Surratt,  were  hanged.  A  physician, 
who  set  the  broken  leg  of  the  assassin,  and  two  other 
men  were  sentenced  to  banishment  for  life  on  Dry 
Tortugas,  one  of  the  Florida  keys,  and  the  man  who 
bored  the  hole  in  the  theater  box  was  condemned  to 
pass  six  years  on  that  remote  and  lonely  island. 

The  future  held  in  store  for  the  innocent  com- 
panions of  Lincoln  on  the  night  of  the  assassination 
a  fate  not  less  terrible  than  that  which  befell  the  guilt) 
companions  of  the  assassin.  The  widow's  always 
frail  nervous  organization  was  wrecked  by  the  shock. 
She  raved  throughout  the  dreadful  night  that  fol- 
lowed, and  throwing  herself  upon  the  corpse  in  the 
morning,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  she  was  persuaded 
to  leave.  As  she  was  led  to  the  White  House  car- 
riage which  had  stood  at  the  door  through  the  long 
hours,  she  cast  a  glance  at  the  theater  and  cried  in 
bitterness,  "Oh,  that  horrible  house !  " 

The  only  mitigation  of  her  misfortune  lay  in  the 
small  competence  which  her  husband  left  her  and  her 
children.  Aside  from  the  real  estate,  which  he  owned 
when  he  went  to  Washington  and  which  he  still  held 

400 


SORROW   OF   THE  WORLD 


at  his  death,  he  died  possessed  of  a  personal  estate 
valued  at  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. Since  he  never  was  a  money  maker  and  was 
obliged  to  borrow  in  order  to  pay  his  expenses  in  his 
first  months  in  the  White  House,  he  must  have  been 
fortunate  in  the  choice  of  a  wise  financial  adviser, 
thus  to  have  accumulated  amid  absorbing  cares  a 
personal  property,  equaling  in  value  the  total  of  the 
salary  he  received  as  President. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  went  to  live  in  England  and  France, 
but  she  found  no  refuge,  even  in  far-away  lands,  from 
the  relentless  specter  which  pursued  her.  The  picture 
of  the  frightful  scene  in  the  theater  was  imprinted  for- 
ever on  her  broken  mind.  She  continually  dwelt  on  it 
in  her  thought  and  conversation.  For  some  time  she 
was  in  a  private  asylum  near  Chicago,  while  her  later 
years  were  passed  in  a  sister's  home  at  Springfield. 

The  young  couple  who  were  her  guests  in  the 
box,  married,  but  the  wife  was  slain  by  the  crazed 
husband. 

Lincoln's  was  the  kindest  fate  of  all.  His  body 
was  removed  from  the  modest  dwelling  of  the  tailor 
to  the  Green  Room  of  the  White  House,  where  it 
was  enthroned  on  a  splendid  catafalque.  There  it 
lay  in  state,  resting  beneath  the  roof  where,  living, 
he  had  found  only  toil  and  care.  A  peace,  not  of 
this  world,  was  in  the  upturned  face,  in  striking  con- 
id  401 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


trast    to    the    turbulent    passions    which    disturbed 
the   men  who  gathered   about  the  bier. 

Seward,  who  had  been  stabbed  while  in  bed  by 
one  of  the  conspirators  and  narrowly  escaped  death, 
was  not  told  of  Booth's  crime.  He  could  only  wonder 
why  his  kind  and  thoughtful  chief  did  not  call,  for  he 
felt  he  would  be  the  first  to  visit  him  in  his  affliction. 
On  Sunday,  when  he  caught  a  glimpse  from  wher^ 
he  lay  of  a  flag  at  half  staff,  the  meaning  of  i 
flashed  on  his  mind. 

The  funeral  was  held  in  the  White  House  on 
Wednesday,  and  all  the  people  of  the  North  rever- 
ently kept  the  day.  Not  a  kinsman  of  the  lonely  man 
was  among  the  mourners,  but  races  and  sects  were 
knit  together  in  a  kinship  of  sorrow  for  this  brother 
of  man.  Queen  Victoria  sent  her  condolences  to 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  "  as  from  a  widow  to  a  widow." 

More  than  kingly  honors  were  paid  the  mortal 
remains  of  one  who  entered  the  world  through  a  hovel 
of  logs.  He  was  borne  to  the  Capitol,  where  many 
thought  his  appropriate  sepulture  was  in  the  crypt 
built  for  the  bones  of  Washington,  his  only  peer  in 
American  history.  Illinois,  however,  claimed  his 
dust,  as  the  rightful  heritage  of  her  soil.  The 
prairies  must  be  hallowed  by  the  grave  of  the  first 
great  man  to  be  nurtured  by  them. 

Cities  and  states  begged  the  privilege  of  honoring 

402 


SORROW    OF   THE   WORLD 


his  body  on  its  way  to  the  grave.  Arrangements 
were  made  for  the  cortege  to  pass  over  nearly  the 
same  route  which  Lincoln  had  followed  on  his  way 
to  the  capital  four  years  before.  At  Philadelphia, 
Liberty  Bell  was  placed  at  the  head  of  his  coffin  in 
Independence  Hall,  where,  in  1861,  he  had  solemnly 
declared  he  would  rather  be  assassinated  then  and 
there  than  surrender  the  Union. 

Hundreds  of  thousands  looked  upon  his  face  in 
New  York.  A  multitude  of  people  from  all  over  the 
upper  part  of  the  Empire  State  gathered  at  Albany, 
and  were  in  waiting  at  midnight  when  the  body  was 
placed  in  the  Capitol. 

At  every  little  station  the  people  gathered  and  stood 
with  bared  heads  as  the  funeral  train  swept  by. 
Arches  were  erected  over  the  track  of  the  railroad. 
Bonfires  lit  the  way  by  night.  The  people  of  the  West 
assembled  in  Chicago,  to  bend  in  reverence  above  the 
bier  of  the  first  President  they  had  given  to  the  nation. 

Springfield,  proud  in  her  grief,  welcomed  home  the 
familiar  form  of  her  immortal  citizen.  It  was  carried 
in  honor  to  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
where  the  now  silent  lips  had  aroused  a  people  to 
battle  for  freedom.  There  it  lay,  surrounded  by  the 
scenes  and  friends  of  his  early  struggles. 

His  loving  stepmother  lived  to  mourn  the  wilder- 
ness waif,  whom  she  had  reared  for  his  wonderful 

403 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


destiny,  but  she  was  too  feeble  from  age  to  attend  his 
funeral.  The  news  of  his  assassination  did  not  sur- 
prise her,  for  she  had  dreaded  it  every  day  since  he 
left  her  to  enter  upon  his  duties  at  Washington. 

His  sign  still  swung  in  front  of  the  old  law  office, 
and  from  the  country  about  New  Salem  and  Clary's 
Grove  simple  men  and  women  brought  their  tribute 
of  tears,  not  to  the  dead  President,  but  to  the  good 
neighbor,  who  had  helped  them  in  the  field,  in  the 
forest,  or  on  the  highway,  and  with  whom  they 
had  shared  the  crust  of  poverty.  Long  before  the 
world  knew  him  and  enrolled  him  among  the  great, 
they  knew  him  and  honored  him.  In  the  imposing 
procession  to  the  tomb,  "Old  Bob,"  the  horse  that 
had  carried  him  on  his  travels  around  the  circuit, 
walked  behind  the  funeral  car  of  his  dead  master. 

The  prairie  was  in  its  Maytime  bloom,  when  Lin- 
coln was  laid  to  rest  on  its  bosom,  beside  his  Willie 
and  the  other  little  boy  who  had  died  in  early  child- 
hood, where  Tad  soon  joined  him,  and  where,  after 
seventeen  years  of  weary  waiting,  the  distracted  wife 
and  mother  found  the  peace  for  which  she  yearned. 
Above  his  grave,  a  lofty  monument  was  reared  by 
his  countrymen,  and  thousands  of  black  men,  from 
whose  ankles  he  had  struck  the  shackles  of  slavery, 
contributed  for  its  erection  out  of  the  earnings  of 
their  free  labor. 

404 


PUNCH'S  TRIBUTE 


From 

ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Foully  murdered,  April  14,  1865 

By  Tom  Taylor  in  London  Punch 

May  6,  1865 

You  lay  a  wreath  on  murdered  Lincoln's  bier! 

You,  who  with  mocking  pencil  wont  to  trace, 
Broad  for  the  self-complacent  British  sneer, 

His  length  of  shambling  limb,  his  furrowed  face. 

His  gaunt,  gnarled  hands,  his  unkempt,  bristling  hair 
His  garb  uncouth,  his  bearing  ill  at  ease, 

His  lack  of  all  we  prize  as  debonair^ 

Of  power  or  will  to  shine,  of  art  to  please; 

Beside  this  corpse,  that  bears  for  winding-sheet 
The  stars  and  stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 

Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurrile  jester,  is  there  room  for  you  ? 

Yes;   he  had  liv'd  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil,  and  confute  my  pen, 

To  make  me  own  this  hind  of  princes  peer, 
This  rail-splitter,  a  true-born  king  of  men. 

My  shallow  judgment  I  had  learn'd  to  rue, 
Noting  how  to  occasion's  height  he  rose; 

How  his  quaint  wit  made  home-truth  seem  more  true; 
How,  iron-like,  his  temper  grew  by  blows; 

How  humble,  yet  how  hopeful  he  could  be; 

How  in  good  fortune  and  in  ill  the  same; 
Nor  bitter  in  success,  nor  boastful  he, 

Thirsty  for  gold,  nor  feverish  for  fame. 
40S 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


So  he  went  forth  to  battle,  on  the  side 

That  he  felt  clear  was  Liberty's  and  Right's, 
As  in  his  peasant  boyhood  he  had  plied 
His  warfare  with  rude  Nature's  thwarting  mights,  — ■ 

The  uncleared  forest,  the  unbroken  soil, 

The  iron  bark  that  turns  the  lumberer's  axe, 

The  rapid  that  o'erbears  the  boatman's  toil, 
The  prairie  hiding  the  maz'd  wanderer's  tracks. 

The  ambush'd  Indian,  and  the  prowling  bear,  — 
Such  were  the  deeds  that  help'd  his  youth  to  train 

Rough  culture,  but  such  trees  large  fruit  may  bear, 
If  but  their  stocks  be  of  right  girth  and  grain. 

So  he  grew  up,  a  destin'd  work  to  do, 

And  liv'd  to  do  it;    four  long  suffering  years' 

111  fate,  ill  feeling,  ill  report,  liv'd  through, 

And  then  he  heard  the  hisses  change  to  cheers, 

The  taunts  to  tribute,  the  abuse  to  praise, 
And  took  both  with  the  same  unwavering  mood,  — 

Till,  as  he  came  on  light  from  darkling  days, 
And  seem'd  to  touch  the  goal  from  where  he  stoodj 

A  felon  hand,  between  the  goal  and  him, 

Reach'd  from  behind  his  back,  a  trigger  prest  — 
And  those  perplex'd  and  patient  eyes  were  dim, 
Those  gaunt,  long-laboring  limbs  were  laid  to  rest. 

The  words  of  mercy  were  upon  his  lips, 
Forgiveness  in  his  heart  and  on  his  pen, 

When  this  vile  murderer  brought  swift  eclipse 
To  thoughts  of  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men. 

4.06 


CHAPTER   XXXV 

A    COURSE    IN    LINCOLN 


Some  of  the  more  notable  Lincoln  books,  by  means  of  which  a 
course  of  reading  may  be  planned  and  the  most  inspiring  ethical 
lesson  in  American  biography  may  be  studied.  — A  long  line 
of  side  reading.  —  Lincoln  in  poetry. 

I  have  ventured  to  borrow  the  title  and  text  of  this 
chapter  from  Charles  E.  Hughes,  who,  speaking  as 
the  Governor  of  New  York,  at  a  Lincoln  Birthday 
meeting,  expressed  the  wish  that  "in  our  colleges, 
and  wherever  young  men  are  trained,  particularly 
for  political  life,  there  could  be  a  course  in  Lincoln. " 

My  purpose  is  twofold.  I  wish  to  make  some 
acknowledgment,  inadequate  as  it  necessarily  must 
be,  of  the  sources  from  which  I  have  derived  inspira- 
tion and  material  for  this  narrative,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  point  inquiring  readers  the  way  to  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  Lincoln  than  may  be  gained  from  any 
single  story  or  interpretation  of  his  life. 

There  is  no  more  companionable  figure  in  history, 
and,  for  my  own  part,  my  memory  dwells  with  grat- 
itude on  the  very  titles  of  most  of  the  books  to 
which  I  owe  what  knowledge  I  have  of  him,  and 
with  which  I   have   passed   so  many  pleasant  and 

¥>7 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


profitable  hours  while  pursuing  a  "course  in  Lin- 
coln." 

Whether  an  eminent  British  educator  was  gifted 
with  prophecy  when  he  said  that  in  the  future  "  morals 
will  be  taught  only  through  biography,"  the  character 
and  career  of  Lincoln  present  an  inspiring  ethical 
lesson  such  as  Americans,  at  least,  cannot  draw  from 
any  other  man  in  history.  He  lived  the  life  of 
America  so  completely  as  to  touch  it  at  every  grade, 
and  in  nearly  all  its  phases. 

Moreover,  the  elements  were  so  varied  and  mixed 
in  his  nature  as  to  make  him  in  an  unusual  degree 
"all  things  to  all  men."  Numerous  as  the  books 
about  him  already  are,  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  and  the 
readers  of  them  will  continue  to  increase  and  multi- 
ply, for  no  two  writers  depict  the  same  man  in  the 
same   mood. 

Foremost  among  the  works  to  which  Lincoln 
writers  and  readers  alike  are  indebted  stands  that 
monumental  structure,  "Abraham  Lincoln,  A  His- 
tory," by  his  secretaries,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John 
Hay.  Nicolay  and  Hay  have  not  only  left  in  their 
ten  volumes  a  life  of  the  man,  but  as  well  a  history  of 
his  times. 

William  H.  Herndon,  Lincoln's  law  partner,  aided 
by  Jesse  W.  Weik,  compressed  into  his  two  volumes  a 
work  which  is  unique  in  American  biography.     In  its 

408 


A   COURSE   IN   LINCOLN 


intimacy,  its  sincere  criticism,  and  its  thoroughness, 
this  life  of  Lincoln  offers  an  extraordinary  portrait. 

Ida  M.  Tarbell's  Life,  which  is  published  in 
four  volumes  and  in  two  volumes,  deservedly  ranks 
high  among  Lincoln  books,  not  only  because  of  the 
vitality  of  Miss  Tarbell's  story,  but  as  well  by  reason 
of  the  diligent  and  enterprising  research  that  it  rep- 
resents, and  which  seems  to  have  sought  out  and 
exhausted  every  neglected  witness. 

"The  Everyday  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by 
Francis  F.  Browne,  has  a  wealth  of  anecdote  and 
reminiscence  in  its  single  volume,  while  William 
Eleroy  Curtis's  "True  Abraham  Lincoln "  abounds 
in  entertaining  and  graphic  pictures  of  the  man,  de- 
rived from  men  who  knew  him  in  the  flesh.  Norman 
Hapgood's  "Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Man  of  the 
People  "  is  a  virile  exposition  of  the  subject,  while 
John  Tyler  Morse's  Life,  in  two  volumes,  is  an 
able  and  critical  study  of  Lincoln  and  his  work. 

Isaac  N.  Arnold,  in  preparing  his  Life,  well  im- 
proved an  advantage  only  second,  if  not  equal,  to 
Herndon,  and  Nicolay  and  Hay,  for  as  a  brother 
lawyer  at  the  bar  of  Illinois,  and  as  a  member  of 
Congress  in  war  time,  he  was  long  associated  with 
Lincoln.  Ward  H.  Lamon's  Life  is  another  book 
based  on  a  personal  relationship  with  the  subject. 
Henry   J.    Raymond's   Life  is  specially  inter«sting 

409 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


among  the  earliest  Lincoln  books,  as  it  presents  the 
view  of  one  who  himself  played  a  prominent  part  in 
the  politics  of  the  war  period.  John  G.  Holland 
is  another  of  the  pioneers  in  the  Lincoln  biographi- 
cal field,  and  his  simple  story  still  holds  its  charm 
after  the  lapse  of  years. 

F.  B.  Carpenter's  "Six  Months  in  the  White 
House"  is  from  the  pen  of  the  artist  whose  brush 
painted  the  familiar  picture  of  the  "Reading  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,"  and  is  one  of  the  most 
readable  of  all  contributions  to  Lincoln  literature. 
Henry  C.  Whitney's  "Life  on  the  Circuit  with  Lin- 
coln "  is  a  racy  portrayal  of  the  man  in  a  picturesque 
background,  by  a  fellow  circuit  rider,  and  the  volume 
has  an  attractive  atmosphere  peculiar  to  it. 

"Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  L.  E. 
Chittendon,  is  a  book  crowded  with  memory  pictures, 
which  the  author  gained  while  an  official  of  the  Lin- 
coln administration.  Alonzo  Rothschild's  "Lincoln, 
Master  of  Men  "  is  laid  out  on  an  original  plan  and 
executed  with  skill.  "Personal  Recollections  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  James  R.  Gilmore,  affords 
not  a  few  novel  glimpses,  while  "Washington  in 
Lincoln's  Time,"  by  Noah  Brooks,  presents  some 
impressive  scenes,  clearly  drawn  by  the  hand  of  a 
trusted  friend  of  the  President. 

"Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  Carl  Schurz,  is  a  luminous 

4.IO 


A   COURSE   IN   LINCOLN 


appreciation,  and  coupled  with  it  in  its  latest  reprint- 
ing is  a  highly  suggestive  essay  by  Truman  H.  Bart- 
lett,  on  "  The  Physiognomy  of  Lincoln/'  Professor 
Bartlett,  who  has  long  been  a  student  of  Lincoln  por- 
traits, aggressively  combats  the  common  impression 
that  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  ungainly  appearance  and 
awkward  movement.  He  sees  a  statuesque  beauty 
in  the  outer  Lincoln,  corresponding  to  the  recognized 
beauty  of  his  mind  and  character,  and  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  compare  his  life  mask  favorably  with  the 
profiles  of  Washington  and  the  Greek  Jove. 

It  is  well  not  only  to  read  about  a  man,  but  also  to 
go  to  the  man  himself  and  form  impressions  of  him 
at  first  hand.  To  know  Lincoln  in  this  way,  a  reader 
must  turn  to  the  "Complete  Works  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  edited  by  Nicolay  and  Hay.  In  the 
twelve  volumes  of  this  work,  a  diligent  and  enter- 
prising effort  has  been  made  to  present  every  authen- 
tic line  in  existence  from  the  man's  speeches  and  writ- 
ings. No  Lincoln  book  is  more  interesting  than  the 
"Complete  Works,"  which  contains  some  attractive 
portraits,  several  notable  tributes  to  Lincoln's 
memory,  a  thorough  index,  an  admirable  Lincoln 
bibliography  by  Daniel  Fish,  and  an  intelligent  Lin- 
coln anthology. 

There  is  an  unending  line  of  side  reading  for  the 
student  of  Lincoln,  and  I  am  indebted  under  this 

411 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


head  to  "Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office/'  by  D. 
H.  Bates;  "Lincoln,  the  Lawyer,"  by  Frederick 
Trevor  Hill ;  "  Memories  of  the  Men  who  saved  the 
Union,"  by  Don  Piatt;  "Lincoln  at  Gettysburg," 
by  Clark  E.  Carr;  "Recollections  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln," by  Joshua  R.  Speed;  "Reminiscences  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  by  Distinguished  Men  of  His 
Time,"  compiled  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice;  "Grant, 
Lincoln,  and  the  Freedmen,"  by  John  Eaton;  "Lin- 
coln and  Stanton,"  by  William  D.  Kelley;  "Memo- 
ries of  Many  Men  and  of  Some  Women,"  by  Maunsell 
B.  Field;  "Inside  the  White  House  in  War  Times," 
by  William  O.  Stoddard;  "Echoes  from  Hospital 
and  White  House,"  by  Rebecca  B.  Pomeroy;  "The 
Spirit  of  Old  West  Point,"  by  Morris  Schaff;  "Cau- 
cuses of  i860,"  by  Murat  Halstead;  "Recollections 
of  the  Civil  War,"  by  Charles  A.  Dana;  "The  Assas- 
sination of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  by  Osborn  H.  Old- 
royd ;  John  Carroll  Power's  account  of  the  Lincoln 
funeral  and  description  of  the  Lincoln  memorial  at 
Springfield;  "Nancy  Hanks,"  by  Caroline  Hanks 
Hitchcock;  "Abraham  Lincoln  and  Men  of  War 
Times,"  by  Alexander  K.  McClure;  "Lincoln's  Plan 
of  Reconstruction,"  by  Charles  H.  McCarthy,  and 
"Lincoln  and  Seward,"  by  Gideon  Welles. 

A  view  of  a  man  may  be  gained  through  the  eyes 
of  his  contemporaries,  which  is  not  afforded  by  any 

412 


A   COURSE   IN   LINCOLN 


other  means.  Interesting  and  significant  lights  are 
shed  on  Lincoln  by  such  books  as  Grant's  "  Memoirs," 
Garland's  "  Life  of  Grant,"  "  General  Grant's  Letters 
to  a  Friend,"  "The  Sherman  Letters,"  Michie's  "Life 
of  General  McClellan,"  Gardner's  "Life  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,"  Charles  Francis  Adams's  Life  of  his 
father,  Boutwell's  "Sixty  Years  in  Public  Affairs," 
"Butler's  Book,"  Cox's  "Three  Decades  of  Legisla- 
tion," Blaine's  "Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  Storey's 
"Life  of  Sumner,"  McCall's  "Life  of  Thaddeus 
Stevens,"  Hart's  "Life  of  Chase,"  Lothrop's  "Life 
of  Seward,"  Joel  Benton's  "Greeley,"  and  George  W. 
Julian's  "Reminiscences,"  while  in  various  papers 
in  the  Century's  "  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil 
War,"  Lincoln  is  incidentally  shown  in  his  relation 
to  military  men  and  movements. 

A  reader  of  James  Ford  Rhodes's  "History  of  the 
United  States,"  and  James  Schouler's  "History  of 
the  Civil  War,"  is  permitted  to  see  Lincoln  in  the 
setting  of  his  times  and  cannot  fail  to  incur  lasting 
obligations  to  those  historians.  Addresses  on  Lin- 
coln by  Bancroft,  Sumner,  Ingersoll,  Watterson, 
McKinley,  Swett,  and  other  orators,  are  rich  in  dra- 
matic pictures  of  the  man  and  eloquent  estimates  of 
his  character. 

Some  excellent  Lincoln  reminiscences  can  be  found 
only  in  the  bound  volumes  of  the  magazine*  of  several 

413 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


decades,  ready  access  to  which,  however,  is  provided 
by  Poole's  Index. 

Moreover,  Lincoln  lives  in  poetry  as  well  as  in 
prose.  The  latter  records  his  deeds,  while  the  former 
gives  us  the  spirit  of  the  man.  The  historian  is  a 
reporter,  but  the  poet  is  a  prophet.  In  history  we  may 
find  what  a  man  was;  it  is  the  office  of  the  poet  to 
foretell  the  verdict  of  the  future  and  imagine  for  us 
the  immortal  that  he  is  to  be. 

Measured  by  this  standard,  Lincoln's  enduring 
greatness  assumes  heroic  proportions.  What  other 
figure  of  the  nineteenth  century  inspired  a  body  of 
verse  equal  in  quality  to  that  which  has  been  offered 
in  tribute  to  him  ?  Much  of  it  came  forth  in  the  year 
of  his  death,  but  it  has  stood  the  test  of  time. 

Walt  Whitman  was  stirred  by  the  passion  of  grief 
to  produce  in  "O  Captain!  My  Captain!"  his  most 
lyrical  poem.  Lowell,  after  delivering  his  "Com- 
memoration Ode"  in  1865,  in  honor  of  the  soldiers 
of  Harvard,  hastened  to  add  to  it  his  memorable 
tribute  to  Lincoln.  London  Punch's  apology  re- 
mains one  of  the  most  interesting  of  all  the  Lincoln 
poems.  It  is  a  remarkably  clear  estimate  of  his  char- 
acter and  picture  of  his  career  for  a  writer  in  London 
so  quickly  to  have  grasped.  By  a  strange  coinci- 
dence, the  author  of  Punch's  tribute,  Tom  Taylor, 
was  also  the  author  of  "Our  American  Cousin,"  the 

414 


A   COURSE   IN   LINCOLN 


play  which  held  the  boards  at  Ford's  Theater  the 
night  of  the  assassination. 

In  William  Cullen  Bryant's  "Abraham  Lincoln," 
there  are  other  lines  as  good  as  these :  — 

"  Whose  proudest  monument  shall  be 
The  broken  fetters  of  the  slave." 

Richard  Henry  Stoddard's  "Horatian  Ode/5 
Bayard  Taylor's  "Gettysburg  Ode,"  George  H. 
Boker's  and  S.  Weir  Mitchell's  verses,  Whittier's 
"  Emancipation  Group,"  his  dedicatory  poem  on  the 
occasion  of  the  unveiling  of  a  monument  in  Boston 
Richard  Watson  Gilder's  "Life  Mask  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  and  a  Lincoln  sonnet  by  Edmund  Clarence 
Stedman,  are  among  other  notable  contributions. 
Stedman's  "Hand  of  Lincoln"  opens  with  a  stanza 
which  discloses  the  quality  and  plan  of  this  interest- 
ing poem:  — 

"Look  on  this  cast,  and  know  the  hand 
That  bore  a  nation  in  its  hold; 
From  this  mute  witness  understand 

What  Lincoln  was  —  how  large  of  mould." 

Maurice  Thompson,  a  Confederate  soldier,  in  his 
poem  on  "  Lincoln's  Grave,"  has  interpreted  perhaps 
best  of  all  the  full  breadth  of  the  man's  sympathies, 
as  these  few  verses  may  serve  to  show :  — 

4i5 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


"He  was  the  southern  mother  leaning  forth, 

At  dead  of  night  to  hear  the  cannon  roar, 

Beseeching  God  to  turn  the  cruel  North 

And  break  it  that  her  son  might  come  once  more; 

He  was  New  England's  maiden  pale  and  pure, 

Whose  gallant  lover  fell  on  Shiloh's  plain. 
*  *  *  *  * 

"He  was  the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  the  West, 
The  thrall,  the  master,  all  of  us  in  one. 


416 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 

LESSONS   FROM   LINCOLN 


Time  and  change,  instead  of  dimming  his  fame,  have  only  served 
to  make  his  example  more  needed  and  useful.  —  Claimed  by 
all  parties  and  all  sections.  —  The  true  prophet  of  the  reunited 
people.  —  His  influence  growing  world-wide.  —  Washington 
and  Lincoln.  —  The  latter  belongs  wholly  to  America.  —  The 
full  meaning  of  the  man  remains  for  future  generations  to 
discover.  —  His  greatness  a  miracle,  or  only  the  common  sense 
of  a  common  man  ?  —  Lincoln's  inspiring  message  to  all  men. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  into  a  world  very 
different  from  ours  —  so  different  that  it  seems  to 
have  been  in  another  age.  The  bees  of  Bonaparte 
swarmed  over  Europe,  and  the  peace  of  Vienna  had 
left  him,  at  the  climax  of  his  career,  the  master  of  the 
continent,  from  the  Russian  frontier  to  the  Medi- 
terranean. George  III,  though  in  his  dotage,  yet 
wore  the  crown  from  which  the  most  splendid  jewel 
had  been  plucked  by  the  sword  of  Washington. 
Africa  was  almost  unknown,  and,  aside  from  India, 
Asia  was  as  little  known  as  it  was  five  hundred  years 
before. 

Along  the  western  shore  of  this  continent,  the 
banner  of  Spain  waved  over  an  immense  empire, 
which  stretched  unbroken  from  the  Sierra  Nevadas 

419 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


to  Cape  Horn.  In  our  own  flag  there  were  only 
seventeen  stars.  Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  Presi- 
dent of  a  nation  of  seven  million  people.  Robert 
Fulton's  steamboat  was  only  two  years  old.  Ste- 
phenson's locomotive  was  yet  twenty  years  away. 

Labor's  burden  was  measured  only  by  what  it 
could  bear.  The  black  toiler  was  a  chattel,  and  his 
white  brother  struggled  beneath  an  industrial  serf- 
dom which  had  every  legal  and  social  sanction. 
Women  had  almost  as  few  rights  at  law  as  they  had 
a  cycle  before,  and  no  broader  sphere  of  activity. 

Democracy  was  without  a  foothold  in  any  of  the 
principal  countries  of  the  Old  World.  England  was 
still  an  aristocracy,  and  as  much  ruled  by  the  few  as 
at  any  time  in  the  six  centuries  since  Runnymede. 

The  United  States  had  a  government  for  the  people, 
but  not  yet  by  the  people.  There  was  a  governing 
class  in  the  town,  the  state,  and  the  nation.  The 
log-cabin  was  not  regarded  as  a  breeding-place  for 
statesmen,  and  if  a  fortune-teller  had  whispered  in 
the  ear  of  Jefferson  that  the  babe  in  Nancy  Hanks's 
arms  would  one  day  sit  in  the  President's  chair,  the 
imagination  even  of  that  great  Democrat  would 
have  been  staggered. 

Lincoln's  death,  as  well  as  his  birth,  seems  remote 
to  the  people  of  this  generation.  It  is  commonly 
said  that  life  has  changed  quite  as  much  in  the  few 

418 


LESSONS   FROM   LINCOLN 


decades  which  have  passed  since  he  died  as  it  some- 
times has  changed  in  an  equal  number  of  centuries. 
Certainly  the  country,  which  he  did  the  most  to  save, 
has  grown  more  in  population  in  that  brief  period 
than  it  grew  in  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before. 
Its  growth  in  wealth  and  luxury  has  been  even  more 
astounding.  One  of  our  multi-millionaires  to-day 
could  have  bought  and  sold  all  the  millionaires  of 
the  world  in  1865.  Probably  there  is  one  railway 
system  now  with  as  much  mileage  as  there  was  in  all 
the  land  then.  One  city  in  these  days  has  as  many 
people  as  there  were  in  all  the  cities  together  in  those 
days. 

Life  is  so  swift  that  men  of  middle  age  think  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  among  the  ancients. 

Distance,  however,  does  not  dim  the  fame  of  Lin- 
coln. The  years  only  increase  the  force  of  the  lesson 
which  his  life  teaches.  Time  and  change  have  served 
to  make  his  example  even  more  needed  and  more 
useful. 

As  the  strife  in  which  he  spent  himself  recedes  and 
subsides,  his  figure  looms  larger  and  clearer.  Con- 
troversy has  fallen  away  from  him.  He  no  longer 
reads  a  party,  as  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  still  do.  All 
parties  invoke  his  name.  In  the  growing  harmony 
and  security  of  the  federation  of  states,  he  is  ceasing 
"o  be  the  chieftain  of  a  section.     In  the  end  all 

419 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


Southerners  will  claim  him,  as  many  Southerners 
already  are  claiming  him. 

The  self-respect  of  the  new  South  does  not  require 
that  a  line  he  spoke  or  wrote  be  stricken  out.  He 
stands  as  the  true  prophet  of  the  reunited  people  in 
this  happier  day,  when  the  mere  reminders  of  the 
battles  between  fellow-countrymen  have  long  been 
dropped  from  the  regimental  standards  of  the  army 
of  the  nation  and  the  very  name  of  rebellion  has 
been  discarded  by  the  government  at  Washington. 

"The  Union  with  him,  in  sentiment,  rose  to  the 
sublimity  of  a  religious  mysticism/'  said  Alexander 
H.  Stephens,  the  Vice-president  of  the  Confederacy, 
while  Henry  W.  Grady,  the  most  eloquent  spokes- 
man of  that  great  and  flourishing  South,  which  has 
risen  from  the  devastation  of  war,  pronounced  him 
"the  first  typical  American,  the  first  who  compre- 
hended within  himself  all  the  strength  and  gentleness, 
all  the  majesty  and  grace  of  this  republic." 

In  truth,  Lincoln  is  rising  above  politics  entirely* 
The  concrete  issues,  for  which  he  directly  stood 
as  a  statesman,  are  of  the  past.  He  is  coming  more 
and  more  to  stand  for  social  rather  than  political 
principles,  —  for  democracy  in  all  things,  in  all  lands. 

His  countrymen  are  thus  moving  to  place  him  on 
the  broadest,  firmest,  and  most  enduring  basis,  where 
the  vicissitudes  of  politics  and  government  cannot 

420 


LESSONS   FROM   LINCOLN 


reach  him.  It  well  may  be  that  in  time  the  world 
will  take  him,  that  he  will  cease  to  be  even  national, 
and  that  all  the  races  of  his  "plain  people"  every- 
where, catching  the  inspiration  of  his  career,  will 
;nake  universal  the  old  chant:  — 

"  We  arc  coming,  Father  Abraham !  ** 

Whether  Lincoln  ranks  with,  or  outranks,  Wash- 
ington, is  an  old  but  not  an  important  question. 
Comparison  is  unnecessary. 

Men  who  may  be  counted  off  in  pairs,  whether  in 
history  or  among  our  everyday  associates,  are  not 
interesting.  A  real  man  suggests  no  one  but  him- 
self. Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  made  in  any  other 
man's  mould,  and  when  he  was  made  his  mould  was 
broken. 

As  a  brave,  adroit,  and  patriotic  soldier,  Washing- 
ton led  the  American  people  to  independence.  As  a 
wise,  prudent,  and  incorruptible  statesman,  he  led 
them  in  establishing  a  government.  He  was  the 
foremost  American  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  of 
his  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  Lincoln  was  on  the  national 
stage  hardly  half  a  dozen  years.  Until  his  debate 
with  Douglas  in  1858,  he  was  unknown  outside  of 
Illinois.  So  brief  a  record,  however  crowded,  could 
not  account  for  so  great  a  renown. 

431 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


When  we  think  of  Washington  we  think  of  what 
he  did.  When  we  think  of  Lincoln  we  think  of  what 
he  was  True,  he  wielded  a  greater  and  more  des- 
potic authority  than  Washington  or  any  other  Ameri- 
can ever  wielded.  Nevertheless,  he  is  remembered 
and  revered  more  as  a  man  of  ideals  than  as  a  man 
of  power. 

The  smoke  of  battle  has  rolled  away  from  Lincoln. 
We  know  he  was  the  master  of  generals  and  the 
leader  of  armies;  but  that  is  not  the  picture  which 
posterity  carries  in  its  mind's  eye.  The  Kentucky 
log-cabin,  and  not  the  White  House,  is  in  the  back- 
ground of  that  familiar  picture.  He  is  surrounded 
not  with  the  gleaming  bayonets  of  the  martial  mil- 
lions whom  he  commanded,  but  by  the  primeval 
forest  of  his  Indiana  wilderness,  an  axe  rather  than  a 
sword  in  his  hand. 

WTe  dwell  less  on  his  triumphs  at  the  bar  than  on 
his  achievements  in  arithmetic  on  a  wooden  shovel, 
with  a  lump  of  charcoal  for  a  pencil.  Oftener  we 
see  him  among  his  rustic  familiars  on  the  banks  of 
the  Sangamon  than  in  the  camp  of  his  grand  army 
on  the  Potomac,  among  his  bucolic  equals  in  the 
streets  of  Springfield  than  with  his  outriders  in  the 
avenues  of  Washington.  His  little  Gettysburg  ad- 
dress is  worth  more  to  us  than  all  his  official  messages 
to  Congress. 

422 


LESSONS   FROM   LINCOLN 


We  mark  the  height  of  glory  which  he  gained,  but 
chiefly  to  measure  his  lifelong  struggle  upward  from 
the  depths  of  poverty  and  ignorance,  whence  he 
rose. 

A  passionate  protest  assails  the  historian,  who  at- 
tempts to  remove  or  modify  a  single  trace  of  the 
disadvantages  over  which  he  triumphed.  That  is 
the  Lincoln  who  is  sacred  to  us.  That  is  the  Lincoln 
whom  Americans  claim  wholly  as  their  own. 

Other  nations  have  bred  great  statesmen,  but 
other  nations  have  not  bred  them  the  way  Lincoln 
was  bred,  "as  God  made  Adam,"  said  Lowell,  "out 
of  the  very  earth,  unancestried,  unprivileged,  un- 
known." Napoleon  might  boast  he  made  his  mar- 
shals out  of  mud,  but  he  did  not  make  his  statesmen 
from  that  material.  In  the  upheaval  of  war,  men 
sometimes  rise  from  the  bottom.  In  the  work  of 
peace,  the  upper  crust  generally  remains  intact. 
Even  the  French  Revolution  did  not  develop  one 
peasant  leader  among  its  statesmen. 

Lincoln's  greatness  is  still  a  mystery,  to  many  a 
miracle.  Possibly  it  may  have  been  fundamentally 
the  common  sense  of  a  common  man.  The  world 
does  not  yet  know,  for  it  has  no  standard  by  which 
to  try  him,  since  he  is  the  only  common  man  who  has 
walked  in  a  high  place  without  losing  his  commonness, 
the  only  man  of  the  people  in  the  pages  of  history 

423 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


whom  no  honor  could  exalt  above  his  native  sim- 
plicity. 

It  was  reserved  for  Lincoln  to  verify  to  the  world 
the  American  contention,  proclaimed  in  1776,  that 
all  men  are  fit  to  govern  themselves.  It  remains  for 
future  generations  to  catch  the  full  meaning  of  his 
life. 

If  his  countrymen  to-day  should  see  ahead  of  them 
a  task  like  his  in  the  Civil  War,  would  they  dare  to 
choose  one  of  his  bringing  up  for  that  task  ?  Would 
they  not  put  their  trust  in  training  rather  than  in 
character  —  in  an  expert  rather  than  in  a  man  ? 

In  the  resistless  progress  of  democracy,  the  race 
will  learn  "  how  much  truth,  how  much  magnanimity, 
and  how  much  statecraft  await  the  call  of  oppor- 
tunity in  simple  manhood,  when  it  believes  in  the 
justice  of  God  and  the  worth  of  man."  Then,  it 
may  be,  that  the  career  of  Lincoln  will  cease  to  be  a 
riddle,  and  that  a  line  of  Lincolns  will,  like  him, 
spring  from  the  soil  —  yes,  even  from  city  pave- 
ments —  and  usher  in  the  reign  of  common  men  and 
common  sense. 

Meanwhile,  all  men  may  find  in  Lincoln's  life 
an  inspiration  against  every  obstacle  in  their  path- 
way, whether  they  be  choppers,  fishers,  or  ploughmen. 
As  toil  and  hope  redeemed  him,  so  any  one  may 
redeem   himself  from    poverty,    illiteracy,    and   ob- 

424 


LESSONS   FROM   LINCOLN 


scurity,  the  disinherited  may  claim  their  inheritance, 
the  unschooled  may  make  their  scantiest  leisure  their 
teacher,  and  the  benighted  hew  their  way  out  of  the 
wilderness  of  ignorance. 

As  Washington  is  the  father  of  his  country,  so  Lin- 
coln stands  for  the  brotherhood  of  the  American 
people.  He  himself  passed  through  all  classes  and 
belonged  to  none.  The  boast  of  heraldry  and  the 
claim  of  privilege  are  covered  with  irony  in  the  pres- 
ence of 

"  This  hind  of  princes  peer, 
This  rail-splitter,  a  true-born  king  of  men." 

As  the  Christian  church  always  returns  from  afar 
to  its  humble  source  in  the  rude  manger  of  Bethlehem, 
so  must  Americans,  while  the  name  of  Lincoln  lasts, 
own  their  kinship  with  the  lowborn,  the  poor,  and  the 
ignorant. 


425 


INDEX 


Abraham  Lincoln 

Birthplace  described,  i,  6;  ignorant  of 
his  family  origin,  3;  indifferent  to 
ancestral  claims,  4 ;  descended  from 
farmers  and  mechanics,  4;  anec- 
dote of  the  War  of  181 2,  7;  moved 
to  Indiana,  7,  8 ;  a  hut  in  the  wilder- 
ness, 9 ;  his  first  shot,  n;  his 
mother's  farewell,  13;  his  step- 
mother's good  influence,  15,  16; 
schooling,  18,  19,  22;  eagerness  for 
books,  19,  20,  21,  22;  great  height 
and  strength,  23,  24;  accused  of 
laziness,  25;  boyhood  dreams, 
25,  26,  27;  early  writings,  26, 
27;  on  a  flat  boat,  27;  his 
first  dollar,  28;  moved  to  Illi- 
nois, 29,  30;  left  his  father's  roof, 
32;  once  more  a  flatboatman,  32, 
33;  a  slave  auction,  34;  arrived 
in  New  Salem,  Illinois,  34 ;  whipped 
a  frontier  bully,  36;  clerk  in  a 
store,  36;  his  honesty,  37;  loafing 
and  dreaming,  38;  failure  in  busi- 
ness, 43.  44,  45- 

Politician  and  Lawyer,  Captain  in 
Black  Hawk  War,  39,  40,  41 ;  de- 
feated for  Legislature,  42,  43 ;  read- 
ing law,  46;  postmaster,  47;  sur- 
veyor, 48;  elected  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, 51;  met  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
52;  joined  the  Whigs,  52;  reckless 
legislation,  54;  took  his  stand 
against  slavery,  55,  56,  57;  defeated 
for  Speaker,  57;  leader  of  the 
minority,  57;  his  first  love,  59; 
death  of  Ann  Rutledge  and  his 
despair,  60,  61 ;  moved  to  Spring- 
field,  62;    his  poverty,   62;    prac- 


tising law,  62 ;  a  group  of  brilliant 
associates,  64;  early  oratorical 
manner,  65;  ceased  to  engage  in 
personal  controversies,  65;  oppo- 
sition to  Knownothingism,  66; 
lack  of  social  graces,  67 ;  met  Mary 
Todd,  68;  relations  with  her 
abruptly  ended,  69;  his  desperate 
melancholy,  69;  duel  with  Shields, 
70,  71;  marriage,  72;  defeated 
for  Congressional  nomination,  73; 
suspected  of  being  a  deist,  73; 
elected  to  Congress,  74;  attracted 
the  favor  of  Webster,  76 ;  opposition 
to  Mexican  War,  77,  78;  stumping 
Massachusetts  for  Zachary  Taylor, 
79;  first  meeting  with  Seward,  80; 
foresaw  slavery  conflict,  80;  intro- 
duced bill  for  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  81;  a 
disappointed  applicant  for  office, 
81,82;  returned  to  law  practice,  83 ; 
declined  a  Chicago  practice,  84; 
his  small  fees,  85;  his  largest  fee, 
85;  discouraged  unnecessary  suits, 
86;  habits  on  the  circuit,  87,  88,  89; 
mastering  Euclid,  90;  important 
cases,  93,  94;  rebuffed  by  Stanton, 
94,  95 ;  realized  lack  of  education, 
95;  offended  Mrs.  Lincoln's  sense 
of  propriety,  98,  99;  devotion  to 
his  children,  99,  100;  office  habits, 
100,  101 ;  defended  Jack  Arm- 
strong's son,  102;  confuted  a  wit- 
ness with  an  almanac,  103. 
Anti-slavery  Leader,  aroused  by  repeal 
of  Missouri  Compromise,  104; 
confronted  Douglas,  109;  candi- 
date for  Senate  in  1854,  111;  his 
stirring  watchwords,  112;    complS* 


427 


INDEX 


merited  by  Douglas,  112,  113; 
defeated  for  the  Senate,  113 ;  joined 
the  Republican  party,  114;  the 
"lost  speech,"  114;  supported  for 
Vice-president,  115;  candidate  for 
the  Senate  against  Douglas,  116; 
antagonize^  by  Horace  Greeley, 
117;  friends  opposed  "house  di- 
vided against  itself"  speech,  118, 
119;  opening  of  the  debate  with 
Douglas,  125;  the  Freeport  ques- 
tions, 128 ;  his  position  on  the  issues 
of  the  campaign,  131,  132;  defeated 
by  Douglas,  134;  campaign  ex- 
penses, 134. 
Candidate  for  President,  his  national 
leadership  recognized,  137;  Ohio 
speeches,  138;  declined  to  be  candi- 
date for  President,  138,  139;  re- 
considered and  consented,  139; 
Cooper  Union  speech  and  its  suc- 
cess, 140,  141,  142;  his  rhetoric 
praised  by  Yale  professor,  142; 
regarded  himself  merely  as  a  "dark 
horse"  for  President,  144;  hailed 
as  the  rail-splitter,  146;  western 
enthusiasm  aroused  for  him,  147; 
warned  friends  against  making 
pledges,  149;  his  nomination  by 
the  Chicago  convention,  150;  his 
reception  of  the  news,  151,  152; 
a  disturbing  omen,  153;  visited 
by  the  committee  of  notification, 
154;  the  East  bitterly  disappointed 
by  his  nomination,  155;  Douglas's 
tribute,  155;  campaign  and  elec- 
tion, 156;  his  election  regretted 
by  many  Republicans,  161;  con- 
structing his  cabinet,  161;  his 
silence  and  seclusion,  161;  his 
beacon  lights  in  the  storm,  162; 
first  speech  after  election,  162; 
his  character  portrayed  by  Hern- 
don,  162;  his  appearance  shocks 
visitors,  1 63 ;  position  on  secession, 
164,  165;  feared  his  election  would 
not  be  proclaimed  by  Senate,  166; 

428 


farewell  visit  to  stepmother,  167; 
his  small  estate,  168;  last  visit  to 
his  law  office,  168,  169;  farewell 
to  Springfield,  171;  cold  reception 
in  New  York,  1 74 ;  stirring  address 
at  Philadelphia,  175;  warned  by 
Pinkerton  of  an  assassination  plot 
in  Baltimore,  175,  176;  going 
through  Baltimore  by  night,  177, 
178. 
President,  1 861-1863,  coolly  received 
in  Washington,  179;  his  power  to 
lead  unsuspected,  180,  323;  diffi- 
culty with  Seward,  180,  181;  sur- 
rounded by  armed  guards  at  his 
inauguration,  181;  the  center  of  a 
remarkable  group  of  men,  183; 
his  hat  held  by  Douglas,  184;  his 
appeal  for  the  Union,  185;  a  time 
of  great  trial,  188;  his  apparent 
indifference,  189;  overwhelmed  by 
office  seekers,  190;  shocked  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  191,  192;  extra- 
ordinary proposal  by  Seward 
brushed  aside,  194,  195,  324,  325; 
appreciated  by  Seward,  195;  ad- 
vised by  General  Scott  to  surrender 
Fort  Sumter,  195;  advice  endorsed 
by  cabinet,  196;  his  own  determi- 
nation against  surrender,  196;  a 
sleepless  night,  196;  expedition  to 
Fort  Sumter  ordered,  197;  the 
attack  on  Sumter,  198,  199;  leaders 
steadied  by  his  coolness,  199;  the 
surrender  of  Fort  Sumter,  200; 
call  for  volunteers  and  extra  session 
of  Congress,  200;  Douglas's  offer 
of  support,  200;  the  North  rallied 
around  the  President,  201 ;  hostility 
in  the  border  states,  201,  202; 
eleven  southern  states  in  secession, 
202;  wholesale  resignations  in  the 
army,  202;  Lee  declined  the 
Union  command,  202;  notable 
Southerners  who  stood  by  the 
Union,  203;  no  desertions  among 
the  private  soldiers,  203 ;  his  anxiety 


INDEX 


for  the  safety  of  the  capital,  205; 
crippled  state  of  the  government, 
206,  207;  his  struggle  with  novel 
duties,  208;  his  greeting  to  Major 
Anderson,  209;  first  experience  in 
diplomacy,  210;  first  message  to 
Congress,  211;  his  bearing  under 
the  defeat  at  Bull  Run,  213,  214; 
wild  counsels  ignored,  216;  ap- 
pointed General  McClellan  to  com- 
mand the  army,  216;  meeting  the 
threat  of  war  from  Great  Britain 
in  the  Trent  case,  220;  saving  the 
border  states  from  secession,  220, 
221,  222,  223;  appointed  Stanton 
Secretary  of  War,  224;  faith  in  the 
Monitor,  227;  grieving  over  loss  of 
son,  287;  depressed  by  failure  of 
Peninsular  Campaign,  228;  a 
strange  pledge,  229 ;  letter  to  Greeley 
on  emancipation,  312;  extraordi- 
nary cabinet  scene,  313;  provisional 
emancipation  proclamation,  229; 
disappointed  again  by  McClellan, 
330;  administration  rebuked  at 
the  polls,  230;  skilful  handling  of  a 
cabinet  crisis,  326,  327,  328;  final 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  315; 
seeking  relief  in  jests,  231 ;  attempt 
to  force  his  resignation,  232 ;  agony 
over  defeats  at  the  front,  232;  ex- 
traordinary letter  to  Hooker,  344; 
ordered  Hooker  to  pursue  Lee,  235 ; 
appointed  Meade  to  command,  236 ; 
blamed  himself  for  not  taking 
command  in  person  after  Gettys- 
burg, 238;  anxiety  over  Vicksburg, 
238;  nearly  alone  in  standing  by 
Grant,  240;  rejoicing  over  Vicks- 
burg, 241,  242;  "The  father  of 
waters  goes  un vexed  to  the  sea," 
243 ;  distressed  by  draft  riots,  244 ; 
troubles  with  the  Copperheads,  246; 
Gettysburg  address,  248,  249,  250, 
251,  252. 

President,   1 864-1 865,   reelection  op-  J 
posed  by  radicals  and  Republican  | 

429 


leaders,  254;  relations  with  poli- 
ticians, 255;  sustained  by  the  plain 
people,  256;  renominated  on  a  non- 
partisan ticket,  257;  "Don't  swap 
horses  while  crossing  the  river," 
258;  on  the  firing  line  near  Wash- 
ington, 259;  disgusted  with  "gold 
sharks,"  259;  insisted  on  calling  for 
500,000  men,  259,  260;  heart 
racked  by  the  wounded,  260,  261 ; 
retirement  from  ticket  planned  by 
leaders,  261,  262;  admitted  his 
own  probable  defeat,  262;  saved 
by  timely  victories,  263;  reelected, 
263;  old  friends  among  the  Con- 
federates, 267;  weeping  for  the  loss 
of  a  Confederate  brigadier,  267; 
no  vacations,  269;  religious  creed, 
271 ;  attitude  toward  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
271;  manner  toward  callers,  271, 
272,  273;  modesty,  274;  visited 
by  Dennis  Hanks,  274;  kindness, 
275;  reading,  276;  diet,  277;  office 
habits,  278;  democracy,  280,  281; 
leadership,  281,  282,  283;  advice 
to  workingmen,  282,  283;  children, 
285 ;  diffident  application  for  son's 
appointment  on  Grant's  staff,  289; 
appreciation  of  private  soldiers, 
293;  caring  for  the  sick  and 
wounded,  294,  295;  tribute  to  a 
mother,  297;  ideal  of  the  Union, 
299 ;  saving  soldiers  under  sentence, 
300,  301,  302,  303,  304;  opposed  to 
capital  punishment,  302;  received 
Frederick  Douglass,  first  negro  at 
White  House,  320;  invited  Doug- 
lass to  tea,  321 ;  shaking  hands  with 
freedmen  at  New  Year's  reception, 
321;  relations  with  Seward,  324, 
325;  relations  with  Chase,  326; 
relations  with  Stanton,  328,  329, 
33°»  3Z1*  332\  firmness  toward 
cabinet,  333;  indifferent  to  finance, 
334;  relations  with  Chase,  335,  336, 
337;  anecdote  of  relations  with 
McClellan,  342,  343 ;  giving  gener- 


INDEX 


als  the  benefit  of  his  common  sense, 
346,  347 ;  first  meeting  with  Grant, 
351,  352;  first  meeting  with  Sheri- 
dan, 353,  354;  only  grievance 
against  Grant,  354;  estimates  of, 
by  Grant  and  Sherman,  354;  pos- 
sessed the  essential  qualities  of  a 
gentleman,  355;  frankness  and 
courtesy  toward  his  officers,  355; 
lack  of  jealousy  and  envy,  355; 
baffled  attempts  to  supplant  him 
with  a  military  hero,  356;  main- 
tained his  own  supremacy  at  all 
times,  357;  attitude  toward  foes  in 
arms,  359;  efforts  to  conquer  the 
South  by  magnanimity,  359;  op- 
posed by  the  leaders  of  his  party, 
360;  objected  to  ironclad  oath,  360 ; 
adopted  the  golden  rule  in  states- 
manship, 360;  at  the  Hampton 
Roads  conference,  361,  362; 
planned  to  pay  for  slaves  rejected 
by  cabinet,  362;  pressed  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment,  363,  364; 
a  changed  man  at  second  inaugura- 
tion, 365;  Booth  pushed  back  by 
the  police,  365;  second  inaugural, 
366,  367,  368;  took  its  place  beside 
the  Gettysburg  address,  369. 
Last  Days,  at  the  front  with  Grant, 
370;  anxious  to  avert  another 
battle,  372;  in  Richmond,  375; 
among  the  freedmen,  375,  376;  in 
Davis's  chair,  376;  visited  Mrs. 
Pickett,  377;  discussed  terms  of 
surrender,  378;  returning  to  Wash- 
ington, 378;  prophetic  lines  from 
Macbeth,  378;  his  wife's  strange 
dread,  379 ;  no  exultation  in  victory, 
382;  called  for  "Dixie,"  383;  last 
speech,  383;  a  dream,  384;  invited 
Grant  to  the  theater,  385 ;  anxious 
to  hasten  reconstruction,  386; 
"Enough  lives  have  been  sacri- 
ficed," 386;  parting  injunction  to 
cabinet,  386;  ignored  Stanton's  fears 
for  bis  safety,  387;  attitude  regard- 


ing assassination,  387;  invitation 
to  theater  declined  by  Grant,  387; 
future  plans  discussed  with  wife, 
388;  her  premonition,  388;  at 
Ford's  Theater,  389;  last  words, 
390;  shot  by  Booth,  391;  closing 
hours,  392,  393,  394,  39s ;  death, 
395;  tribute  by  Lowell,  380,  381; 
tribute  by  Whitman,  396;  mourned 
by  the  nation,  397,  398;  policy 
toward  the  South  reversed,  398, 
399;  Radicals  welcomed  the 
change,  399;  punishment  of  the 
conspirators,  400;  awful  fate  of 
companions  in  theater  box,  400; 
value  of  estate,  400,  401 ;  funeral 
and  burial,  402,  403,  404;  tribute 
in  London  Punch,  405,  406;  a 
course  of  Lincoln  reading,  407,  408, 
409,  410,  411,  412,  413;  tributes 
by  the  poets,  414,  415,  416;  lessons 
from  his  life,  417,  418,  419,  420, 
421,  422,  423,  424,  425. 

Habits  and  Manners:  — 

Ambition,  18,  19,  20,  21,  22,  25,  28. 
Education,  15,  18,  19,  20,  21,  22,  25, 

26,  27,  37,   38,  42,  44,  45.  46,  76, 

90,  95,  248,  249. 
Friendships,  48,  49,  88,  145. 
Humor,  26,  27,  76,  89,  90,  231,  25** 

268,  269,  329,  330,  331. 
Kindness,  37,  88,  275,  294,  295,  296. 
Lawyer,   84,   85,  86,  90,   91,  92,   95, 

96. 
Literary  Tastes,  101,  276. 
Melancholy,  61,  69,  97,  98. 
Oratory,  25,  65,  126. 
Personal  Appearance,   15,  23,  33,  44, 

77,  79,  80,  88,  89,  95,  98,  99,  126, 

140,  163,  173,  191,  272. 
Physical  Strength,  23,  24,  36,  43. 
Superstitions,  10,  100,  153,  169,  247, 

290,  384. 
Temperance,  26,  36,  66. 
Thrift,  Lack  of,  44,  84,  85. 


43° 


INDEX 


Opinions  and  Principles :  — 

Fatalism,  82,  153,  387. 
Honesty,  37,  45,  46,  63,  64,  92,  93> 
148,  149. 


Knownothingism,  66,  137. 
Religion,  70,  73,  118,  271,  313,  314. 
Slavery,  21,  34,  55,  56,  57,  66,  80,  81, 

no,  138,  307,  308. 
Woman's  Suffrage,  53. 


Abolition,  its  advocates  few  in  number, 
108,  109;    Lincoln's  opposition  to, 

131- 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  shocked  by 
Lincoln's  appearance,  191,  192; 
position  in  London  saved  by  Lin- 
coln's diplomacy,  210. 

Anderson,  Robert,  his  meeting  with 
Lincoln,  209. 

Armstrong,  Hannah,  her  son  de- 
fended by  Lincoln,  103;  last  visit 
to  Lincoln,   168. 

Armstrong,  Jack,  whipped  by  Lincoln, 
36;  his  son  defended  by  Lincoln, 
103. 

Baker,  Edward  D.t  early  association 
with  Lincoln,  64;  at  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  183. 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  pushed  back  by 
the  police  at  the  second  inaugura- 
tion, 365;  informed  of  Lincoln's 
plan  to  visit  theater,  385;  con- 
spiracy, 388,  389,  390;  shot  Lin- 
coln, 391;  leg  broken,  392;  flight, 
392;   death,  400. 

Breckinridge,  John  C,  candidate  for 
President,  158;  as  Vice-president 
declared  Lincoln's  election,  166; 
at   Lincoln's   inauguration,    183. 

Browning,  Orville  H.,  early  associa- 
tion with  Lincoln,  64. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  presided 
over  the  Lincoln  Cooper  Union 
meeting,  141. 

Buchanan,  James,  escorted  Lincoln 
to  the  Capitol,  181;  at  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  182. 

Burnside,  Ambrose  E.,  appointed  to 
command  by  Lincoln,  343. 

Butler,   Benjamin   F.,    proposed   for 


President,  in  place  of  Lincoln;  26t; 
anecdote  of  Lincoln  in  camp,  298; 
declared  negroes  contraband  of 
war,  310. 

Cameron,  Simon,  member  of  the  same 
Congress  with  Lincoln,  75;  forced 
out  of  Lincoln's  cabinet,  328. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  preferred  for 
President  by  Lincoln,  138;  his 
threat  to  the  bankers,  207;  issuing 
greenbacks,  218;  relations  with 
Lincoln,  326;  resignation  declined 
by  Lincoln,  327;  relations  with 
Lincoln,  335,  336,  337. 

Clay,  Henry,  model  and  idol  of  Lin- 
coln, 53;  his  Compromise  of  1850, 
106. 

Compromise  of  1850,  adopted,  105, 
106,  107. 

Davis,  David,  complained  of  Lin- 
coln's small  fees,  85;  fondness  for 
Lincoln,  89;  managed  Lincoln's 
campaign  in  the  convention  of  i860, 
147;  not  confided  in  by  President- 
elect, 1 61 ;  anecdote  of  Lincoln 
concerning  capital  punishment,  302. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  member  of  the  same 
Congress  with  Lincoln,  75 ;  assailed 
Douglas's  "Freeport  Heresy,"  136; 
sighing  for  the  old  flag  at  Bull  Run, 
212;  denunciation  of  the  Emanci- 
pation Proclamation,  318;  advo- 
cated employment  of  negro  soldiers, 
318;  military  training,  340;  flight 
from  Richmond,  373,  374;  charged 
with  complicity  in  Lincoln's  assassi- 
nation, 399. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Lincoln,  52;  admitted  to 
the  Supreme  Court  with  Lincoln, 


431 


INDEX 


64;  advocated  "popular  sover- 
eignty," 107,  108;  mobbed  in 
Chicago,  109;  confronted  by  Lin- 
coln, 109,  no,  hi;  complimented 
Lincoln,  112,  113;  reelection  op- 
posed by  Lincoln,  116;  opening 
of  the  debate  with  Lincoln,  125; 
elected  to  the  Senate,  134;  rebuked 
by  Democratic  caucus  of  Senate, 
136;  his  tribute  to  Lincoln,  155; 
defeated  for  President,  156;  held 
Lincoln's  hat  at  inauguration,  184; 
supporting  Lincoln  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  war,  200;   death,  201. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  first  negro  re- 
ceived at  the  White  House,  320; 
invited  to  tea  by  Lincoln,  321. 

Dred  Scott  Decision,  its  political 
effect,  117. 

Emancipation,  adopted  for  District  of 
Columbia,  311 ;  first  proclamation, 
229;  delayed  by  Lincoln  for  con- 
stitutional and  political  reasons, 
308,  309 ;  discussed  by  Lincoln  in  a 
letter  to  Greeley,  312;  extraordi- 
nary cabinet  scene  when  draft  of 
proclamation  was  presented,  314, 
315;  signing  of  the  final  proclama- 
tion, 315;  loss  of  the  original  copy, 
316;  effect  of  the  proclamation, 
317,  318;    justified  by  events,  319. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  tribute  to 
Lincoln's  leadership,  283. 

Ericsson,  John,  inventor  of  the  Moni- 
tor, 227. 

Everett,  Edward,  orator  at  Gettysburg, 
248;  complimented  Lincoln's  ad- 
dress, 251. 

France,  invaded  Mexico,  218;  Em- 
peror exalted  over  supposed  fall  of 
Washington,  259. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  nominated  for 
President   against   Lincoln,    254. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  speech  on  Lincoln, 

398. 
Garrison,  WUiiam  Lloyd,  mobbed  in 
Boston,  $$. 


Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  capture  of  Fort 
Donelson,  223;  Vicksburg  cam- 
paign, 238,  239,  240,  241,  242;  per- 
sonal situation  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  338,  339;  how  he  rose  to 
command,  348,  349;  his  appoint- 
ment as  General-in-chief,  350,  351, 
352;  first  meeting  with  Lincoln, 
351,  352;  estimate  of  Lincoln,  354; 
visited  by  Lincoln  at  the  front,  370; 
declined  Lincoln's  invitation  to  the 
theater,  387;  stirred  to  retaliation 
by  Lincoln's  assassination,  399. 

Great  Britain,  conceded  belligerent 
rights  to  the  Confederacy,  209; 
protest  of  the  United  States  as 
revised  by  Lincoln,  210 ;  invasion  of 
Mexico,  218;  cotton  famine,  218; 
threat  of  war  in  the  Trent  case,  219; 
conciliated  by  the  United  States, 
220. 

Greeley,  Horace,  member  of  Congress 
with  Lincoln,  76;  favored  Douglas 
against  Lincoln,  117;  at  the  Lin- 
coln Cooper  Union  meeting,  141; 
praised  Lincoln's  speech,  142; 
favored  letting  the  South  go,  160; 
letter  from  Lincoln  on  emancipa- 
tion, 312;   opinion  of  Lincoln,  328. 

Halleck,  Henry  W.,  rebuked  by 
Lincoln,  333. 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  member  of  the 
same  Congress  with  Lincoln,  75; 
proposed  for  President,  232. 

Hanks,  Dennis,  at  the  White  House, 
274. 

Hanks,  John,  an  anti-slavery  anec- 
dote, 34;  introduced  in  campaign 
of  i860  rails  split  by  Lincoln, 
146. 

Herndon,  William  H.,  anecdote  of 
Lincoln's  devotion  to  the  truth, 
93;  letter  to  Senator  Wilson  on 
Lincoln,  162. 

Hooker,  Joseph,  instructions  from 
Lincoln,  233;  ordered  to  pursue 
Lee,  235;    resigned,  236;   received 


432 


INDEX 


extraordinary  letter  from  Lincoln, 

344,  345- 

Jackson,  Thomas  J.,  tribute  to,  en- 
dorsed by  Lincoln,  359. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  member  of  Con- 
gress with  Lincoln,  76;  nominated 
for  Vice-president,  257;  accession 
to  the  Presidency  welcomed  by  the 
Radicals,  399. 

Kansas,  the  battle  between  slavery 
and  anti -slavery,  113,  114. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  adopted,  108. 

Lamon,  Ward  H.,  escorted  Lincoln 
through  Baltimore,  177,  178. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  declined  the  command 
of  the  Union  army  and  resigned  his 
commission,  202,  203;  first  inva- 
sion of  the  North,  229;  defeated 
at  Gettysburg,  237;  advocated 
employment  of  negro  soldiers,  318; 
last  stand,  373. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  grandfather  of  the 
President,  came  from  Virginia  to 
Kentucky,  2 ;  killed  by  the  Indians, 
2;  his  estate,  3. 

Lincoln,  Mary  Todd,  her  first  meeting 
with  Lincoln,  68 ;  her  temperament, 
69 ;  relations  with  Lincoln  abruptly 
ended,  69;  brought  on  duel  be- 
tween Lincoln  and  Shields,  71 ; 
marriage,  72;  brothers  and  sisters 
in  the  Confederacy,  267,  268; 
confided  in  by  her  husband,  271; 
with  her  husband  at  Grant's  head- 
quarters, 371 ;  a  strange  dread, 
379;  a  premonition,  388;  suffering 
and  death,  400,  401. 

Lincoln,  Nancy  Hanks,  mother  of 
the  President,  girlhood  and  ante- 
cedents, 5;  married  to  Thomas 
Lincoln,  5;  her  superiority,  6; 
death  and  burial,  13,  14. 

Lincoln,  Robert  Todd,  anecdotes  of 
his  boyhood,  99,  100;  visited  at 
school  by  his  father,  142;  student 
at  Harvard,  285;  appointed  on 
Grant's  staff,  289. 


Lincoln,  Sarah  Bush  Johnston,  step- 
mother of  the  President,  marriage, 
14,  15;  visited  by  stepson  on  his 
way  to  Washington,  167;  mourned 
her  stepson's  death,  303,  304. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  father  of  the  Presi- 
dent, saved  from  the  Indians,  3; 
a  "wandering,  laboring  boy,"  5; 
sober  but  without  ambition,  5; 
married  to  Nancy  Hanks,  5;  car- 
penter, 5;  his  illiteracy,  6;  farmer, 
6;  moved  to  Indiana,  7,  8;  second 
marriage,  14,  15;  moved  to  Illi- 
nois, 29,  30. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  "Tad,"  life  in  the 
White  House,  285,  286;  pretended 
appointment  as  lieutenant  in  the 
army,  288. 

Lincoln,  William  Wallace,  life  in  the 
White  House,  285,  286;  death, 
287. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  impatient  of 
Lincoln's  conservatism,  222;  esti- 
mate of  Lincoln's  statesmanship, 
283;  the  Harvard  Commemoration 
Ode,  380,  381. 

Massachusetts,  Lincoln  awakened  by 
its  Free  Soil  Movement,  80. 

McClellan,  George  B.,  lent  his 
private  car  to  Douglas  in  the 
campaign  against  Lincoln,  123; 
appointed  by  Lincoln  to  the 
command  of  the  army,  216;  dis- 
astrous Peninsular  Campaign  and 
retirement  from  command,  228; 
recalled  to  command  and  victory 
of  Antietam,  229;  finally  relieved 
of.  command,  230;  candidate  for 
President  against  Lincoln,  262; 
anecdote  of  relations  with  Lincoln, 
342,  343- 

Meade,  George  G.,  appointed  to  com- 
mand the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
236. 

Missouri  Compromise,  repealed,  104. 

Negro,  The,  Lincoln's  opinion  of  his 
racial  status,  131 ;  his  service  to  the 


2F 


433 


INDEX 


Union  indispensable,  317,  318;  his 
deportation  favored  by  Lincoln, 
319;  Lincoln  favored  giving  him 
conditional  suffrage,  319;  Lin- 
coln's respect  for  his  feelings,  as 
well  as  rights,  321;  recognized 
at  second  inauguration,  364. 

Pemberton,  John  C,  surrendered 
Vicksburg,  241,  242. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  disgusted  by  Lin- 
coln's nomination,  155;  threatened 
in  the  streets,  161;  denunciation  of 
Lincoln,  308. 

Pickett,  George  E.,  charge  at  Gettys- 
burg, 237;  a  friendly  visit  from 
Lincoln,  377. 

Pinkerton,  Allan,  warned  Lincoln  of 
an  assassination  plot  in  Balti- 
more, 175,  176. 

Polk,  James  K.,  his  Mexican  policy 
opposed  by  Lincoln,  77. 

Popular  Sovereignty,  advocated  by 
Douglas,  108. 

Porter,  David  D.,  entertained  Lincoln 
on  his  flagship,  370. 

Rutledge,  Ann,  Lincoln's  early  sweet- 
heart, 59;   death,  60. 

Scott,  W infield,  "  Wayward  sisters,  de- 
part in  peace,"  160;  first  instruc- 
tions from  Lincoln,  164;  his  plans 
to  preserve  peace  at  Lincoln's  in- 
auguration, 181;  advised  Lincoln 
to  surrender  Fort  Sumter,  195;  re- 
fused to  go  with  the  South,  203; 
in  his  dotage,  207;  recommended 
McClellan's  appointment,  341. 

Seward,  William  H.,  first  meeting 
with  Lincoln,  80;  preferred  for 
President  by  Lincoln,  138;  his 
nomination  in  i860  deemed  a  cer- 
tainty, 143,  144;  defeated  by  Lin- 
coln, 150;  for  compromise,  160; 
disappointed  in  effort  to  control 
Lincoln's  cabinet,  180,  181;  his 
extraordinary  proposal  brushed 
aside  by  Lincoln,  194,  195;  protest 
to  the  British  government  revised 


by  Lincoln,  209,  210;  meeting  the 
threat  of  war  from  Great  Britain 
in  the  Trent  case,  220;  relations 
with  Lincoln,  324,325;  resignation 
declined  by  Lincoln,  327;  stabbed 
in  bed,  394;  first  news  of  Lincoln's 
death,  402. 
Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  won  the  battle  of 
Winchester,  263;  cleared  the  Shen- 
andoah, 264;  personal  situation 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  339, 
340;  first  meeting  with  Lincoln, 
353.   354;     victory  at  Five  Forks, 

373- 

Sherman,  John,  introduced  his  brother 
to  the  President,  189. 

Sherman,  William  T.,  amazed  by 
Lincoln's  flippancy,  189;  relieved 
of  command,  224;  captured  At- 
lanta, 263;  marched  to  the  sea, 
264;  personal  situation  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  339,  340;  esti- 
mate of  Lincoln,  354. 

Shields,  James,  duel  with  Lincoln,  71. 

Spain,  invaded  Mexico,  218. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  his  early  rebuff 
to  Lincoln,  94,  95;  feared  the  fall 
of  Washington  before  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  166;  called  to  the 
cabinet,  224;  alarmed  by  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Merrimack,  226;  rela- 
tions with  Lincoln,  328,  329,  330, 
331;    feared   for  Lincoln's  safety, 

387. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  member  of 
Congress  with  Lincoln,  76 ;  letter 
from  Lincoln  on  secession,  165; 
at  the  Hampton  Roads  conference, 
361. 

Sumner,  Charles,  favored  Lincoln's 
retirement,  262;  at  the  White 
House,  273;  slavery  amendment 
not  favored  by  Lincoln,  363. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  at  Lincoln's  inaugu- 
ration, 183. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  supported  by  L!a- 
coin,  79. 


434 


INDEX 


Thomas,  George  H.,  dispersed  Con- 
federates in  Tennessee,  265. 

Thompson,  Jacob,  escape  favored  by 
Lincoln,  389;  arrest  ordered  by 
Stanton,  399. 

Trumbull,  Lyman,  his  fianc6e  shielded 
by  Lincoln,  71;  elected  to  the 
Senate  by  Lincoln's  aid,  113. 

War,  The  Civil,  the  South  determined 
not  to  abide  by  Lincoln's  election, 
158;  South  Carolina  the  first  to 
move,  i09;  northern  efforts  for 
peace,  1 60 ;  secession  of  New  York 
City  proposed,  160;  business  panic, 
160;  Lincoln's  position  on  seces- 
sion, 164,  165 ;  seven  states  seceded, 
188;  Fort  Sumter's  surrender 
advised  by  Scott,  195;  similar 
advice  from  the  cabinet,  196;  expe- 
dition to  Fort  Sumter  ordered,  197; 
the  attack  on  Sumter,  198,  199;  the 
surrender,  200 ;  the  response  of  the 
North,  201 ;  eleven  states  in  seces- 
sion, 202;  wholesale  resignation  of 
army  officers,  202;  no  desertions 
among  the  privates,  203 ;  the  Sixth 
Regiment  of  Massachusetts  attacked 
in  Baltimore,  204;  Washington 
cut  off  and  defenceless,  204,  205, 
206;  Bull  Run,  212,  213,  214; 
McClellan  appointed  to  command, 
216;  the  border  states  saved  from 
secession,  220,  221,  222,  223; 
Grant's  capture  of  Fort  Donelson, 
223;  fall  of  New  Orleans  and  Mem- 


phis, 224;  battle  of  Hampton 
Roads,  225,  226,  227,  228;  Penin- 
sular Campaign  and  McClellan's 
retirement  from  command,  228: 
second  Bull  Run,  229;  McClellan 
recalled  to  command  and  victory 
of  Antietam,  229;  McClellan 
finally  relieved  of  command.  230; 
battles  of  Fredericksburg  and 
Chancellorsville,  232;  Gettysburg 
campaign,  234,  235,  236,  237,  238; 
Vicksburg  campaign,  238,  239,  240, 
241,  242;  the  draft,  243,  244,  245; 
battles  of  Chattanooga,  Lookout 
Mountain,  and  Missionary  Ridge, 
247;  battles  of  the  Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania,  and  Cold  Harbor, 
254;  Washington  in  danger,  258; 
gold  rose  to  285,  259;  capture  of 
Atlanta,  263;  battle  of  Winchester, 
263 ;  Grant,  Lieutenant-general, 
35°.  3Si»  352;  Sherman's  march, 
353 ;  the  Wilderness  campaign,  353 ; 
final  campaign  against  Lee,  372, 
373;  Richmond  in  flames,  374; 
entered  by  the  Union  troops,  374; 
Appomattox,  378. 

Webster,  Daniel,  recognition  of  Lin- 
coln, 76;  amazed  by  smallness  of 
Lincoln's  legal  charges,  85 ;  favored 
Compromise  of  1850,  106. 

Whitman,  Walt,  "O  Captain!  My 
Captain!"  386. 

Wilson,  Henry,  letter  from  Herndoo 
on  Lincoln,  162. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


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